Don't get Trapped Behind the Fence

Don’t get trapped behind the fence

If you see any people trapped between the George S. Eccles Business Building and the fence that now surrounds some of it, please don’t feed them. Just go to the stairwell that’s in the Northwest corner of the building off of the student lounge and let them back in.

While we have the northwest doors blocked off with tape and signs, there is a stairwell that empties out right next to the student lounge, on one side, and to the outside of the building on the other side. That stairway is not used as often as the main stairway in the center of the building but yesterday an alumnus took it and ended up trapped inside the fenced off area for about five minutes. Now there is a sign on that stairwell door that reads:

Don’t go out this door!

If you do, you will be locked inside a giant fenced-in area

and you will be on display like you are in a strange zoo that features business buildings.

You will have to perform tricks like clapping and rolling over

just to get food.

And that’s no way to live.

As I explained in an earlier blog, the reason the fence is there is because soon a construction crew will start digging a tunnel to connect our building to the campus-wide tunnel system that provides utilities to structures on campus. It will allow them to connect to our present building in four spots. The tunnel will also enable our new building, Huntsman Hall, to tap into the campus- wide system.

(One of the places the tunnel will connect to the building will be in the basement right behind Steve Eaton’s office. Having seen movies before where giant screw-shaped machines capable of drilling to the center of the earth are used to make new tunnels, Steve was concerned one such machine would poke through the wall and into his office without warning. We told him such machines are not part of the proposal here. USU rarely tries to tunnel to the center of the earth, so it doesn’t have any such machines.)

8th floor view of where the tunnel will be placed

Ground level shot of where the tunnel will be placed

Construction crews will have to chew up and replace a sidewalk that now leads away from the business building toward Old Main. I’ve included some pictures shot from the eighth floor and the ground level to give you a rough idea of where the tunnel will be. You should soon see evidence of the work starting near the monument that is in front of the new Agricultural Building.

There’s not much visible work going on now but we expect that within the next few days the digging will begin in earnest. We are still expecting this work to be completed in August before Fall Semester starts.

Ken Snyder