Art Building Repairs Currently Underway

By James Trent

On March 28, 2018

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Repairs include much needed ceiling repairs and bathroom upgrades.
Photo Courtesy of Caleb Zopp

On Feb. 14, students told administration during an SGA meeting about needed repairs to the art building. Now, many of those issues are being addressed.

Richard Dillon, Vice President of Administration & Associate Dean of Students, personally went to the art building the day after the SGA meeting to inspect the issues. “While I was doing that,” Dillon says, “I ran into Jamie Biggs, who now manages at least the art side of the building. And he was happy that I was there and happy to tell me all the things that he had found.” The two of them looked through the building and compiled a list of needed repairs.

“I found one room had a roof leak in it, relatively new,” Dillon recalls. “We discovered that was a roof drain clogging, and have repaired that issue by fixing the drain. It wasn’t actually a roof problem.” While touring around the building he also noticed some overhead lights had burnt out and had them replaced, but those lights will soon be replaced over the summer as the school moves towards LED lights around the entire campus. The dust near the ceramics room has also already been addressed by stronger vacuums with better filters. The ceiling in the two hallways around the auditorium has been replaced, since the old tiles clung to dirt and were difficult to clean. Those replacements began around spring break, and are nearly complete as of this week.

The bathrooms were also a concern brought up by students, specifically the small stalls and unconventional sinks, and the fact that not all bathrooms in the art building are handicap accessible. Plans are in place to adjust the stalls as much as possible, maybe even removing one, to allow more room for users. The sink faucets are actually an old design from the 60s that have, like the old ceiling tiles, simply never been updated since that time. “I hadn’t seen those push handles since the 60s or 70s… and I was really surprised that they all functioned, frankly! But they did, I checked every one of them. But we are going to put newer handles in there. I’ve already ordered those,” says Dillon.

Handicap accessibility is a more complicated problem, however. “The bathrooms in the art side of the fine arts building cannot be made handicap accessible,” Dillon says. “They have to have a certain size to be officially handicap [accessible], because you have to have a 60 inch turn radius for a wheelchair in there.” As the stalls are rearranged, however, Dillon hopes the new elbow room in the bathrooms should at least help any handicapped users more comfortably use the facilities.

Another issue not currently being addressed is the holes in the main auditorium’s ceiling. “The holes were made by some person. There’s a gangplank up there, and someone, while leaning off the gangplank, made holes in the ceiling. We’re not sure why,” Dillon says. To repair those holes, however, the seats would have to be unbolted and removed, then a very large scaffolding, bigger than any Concord has readily available, would be brought in to replace just three tiles. Since the holes were man-made, and not a result of roof or environmental damage, they are not looking to replace those until some other issue arises for which personnel would need to be up there. “We feel fortunate,” Dillon says, “that whoever did that didn’t fall through the ceiling. We’re not happy there’s holes… but we are happy they didn’t get hurt doing that.”

Many of these issues were brought to Dillon’s attention for the first time at the SGA meeting on Feb. 14. This is because Dillon and his team are largely a reactionary force, only addressing problems as they are reported. “We don’t have people walking around campus looking for things to fix. We don’t have time… we’re so busy repairing what we know needs repaired that we don’t have time to do that. So we rely on people reporting things to us.” Dillon himself does report whatever he notices throughout the day, but still largely relies on students or faculty reporting what needs to be fixed to him and his team.

“All my kids are in the arts. I love the arts,” Dillon says. “So anything they need over there that we can afford… we’re happy to help them with.”

Richard Dillon can be contacted via email at rdillon@concord.edu, or by phone at 304-384-5377.