Douglass Hall Update #4

3/1/1998

Welcome back! After a break over the holidays, my column has made its return. In mid-January, the concrete floors of the new building were poured. February saw the erection of the steel girders which form the skeleton of the addition. The 6,000-pound steel girders were laid into place by a gigantic 160-foot tall crane which dwarfed the Hall and could be seen nearly half a mile away!

If you have been around the Hall in the early morning, you may have noticed lights coming from within the building. These are construction workers preparing the north and west sides of the building for integration with the addition. When it nears completion, workers will erect several steel beams to run from the addition into the old Hall and provide seismic stability for the older building.

Although February, 1998 will be remembered for the barrage of devastating El Niño storms, the construction schedule has remained surprisingly intact. The building is still slated for completion in July. For March and April, the bulk of the work will be in completing the framework of the building and constructing floors and walls. Toward May and June, construction will focus on attaching the addition to the existing building and temporarily deconstructing the roof in order to run the steel trusses. Beyond that, construction will focus on completing the interiors and adding shelves, doors and other fixtures. Before the start of the next school year, Menlo will be busily furnishing books for the library, computers for the labs and desks for the classrooms. When completed, the Hall will have approximately 44,000 square feet of usable space.