Why are we having construction during school? 

Nicola Mayer and William Bleicher | Staff Reporters 

New construction has been going on over the past couple months at Menlo. The construction going on the terrace outside the library is to create a new office for Head of School, Than Healy, an office for the Assistant to the Head of School, Julie Johnson, and a new conference room. The purpose of this project was to consolidate the admissions department. At the beginning of the year the school realized how busy the admissions department was with all the applications and how difficult it was for them to be spread out in different office spaces. The offices that used to be for Healy and Johnson, as well as Davis Conference room will be converted into offices for the admissions department.

It was obvious to the school that the admission department would need to take over those offices, so the problem was trying to figure out where to put the new offices for Healy and Johnson. One possibility was putting those offices with Head of the Upper School John Schafer and the other academic offices, but that idea was shut down quickly. Other ideas were to put the offices on the third floor of Stent Hall or to take over the silent section in the library, but those ideas was ultimately shut down as well. “We arrived very quickly at [the terrace] being the best place to be, it didn’t to much harm to the library, it kept [Healy] in the center of campus, it worked,” Director of Operations and Construction David McAdoo said.

The ultimate goal of the library construction will be two office spaces and a conference room. It is clear right now that the admissions office was short on space. This year, Menlo converted Davis Conference room into the admissions office workspace. However, this new admissions area was seen as a short term solution. “We wanted [admissions] to have a longer term solution, and that involved this office and then my assistants office next door connecting to Davis Conference room. So the idea is that this whole floor of Stent would be for admissions,” Head of School Than Healy said. The product of this construction will be a new office space for Mr. Healy, and office space for his assistance, Ms. Johnson, and a new conference room.

The conversation surrounding this new project began last year around this time, and the actual construction for the new offices was supposed to start in November. “The idea was that all of the demolition, jack hammering, and loud noises would happen over winter break… but the timing got pushed back,” Healy said. Ideally, the loud construction would happen over spring break, but if that course of action was followed, the construction would not be finished for graduation.

Many students are confused as to why this project is happening now instead of during the summer where it wouldn’t be an inconvenience do everyday life. The issue is that this summer is going to be very active for facilities and the project would take longer than the length of the Menlo summer. While the new offices and conference room won’t be done by graduation, the outside construction should be completed.

After graduation there will still need to be painting, carpeting and decorating, but the exterior should be ready, or at least substantially completed. The plan is to get the grass area outside of Stent ready to go a couple weeks earlier. The grass needs to be ready and looking nice for graduation as well as for the centennial picnic, which takes place the week before. To accomplish this, the construction equipment that currently resides in the middle of the loop will move to take up a portion of the senior parking lot.

As for the disturbing noise and jack hammering, that should all be done, but students should still expect sawing and other construction noises.