Apr 25, 2016 By Jacob Meyer sports Editor 3 min read

As students end their academic year with finals week, which is likely the busiest week of their semester, the maintenance crew enters the most important time of their year.

“The summer is always the busiest time of our year, actually,” said Terry Sattler, director of facilities planning and management. 

This summer, the university will continue its renovation of the Paul R. Stewart Science Hall. By August 1, Sattler said the fourth floor should be fully renovated, which will complete floors three through five.

A plan for the first and second floor has not been devised yet, Sattler said.

“We’re currently evaluating what our next steps are going to be,” Sattler said. “We have yet to complete the first and second floors.”

The biology department faculty offices are one of the last pieces to be finished on the fourth floor, and Sattler said those should be done by the end of July. 

The first piece of action for the summer is to relocate the data center on the fourth floor to a more suitable room. Sattler said they will get started on that with the information technology department right after Commencement in May.

“[It will] still be on the fourth floor; it’s almost side by side, but we had to create a new room for it,” Sattler said. “It was designed to be relatively close to the existing data center room to make the move as easy as possible.”

The data center is where the main computer servers are located.

“First of all we needed to create a better space for it,” Sattler said. “The current data center space was very limited [and] poorly air conditioned, and we wanted to create a much better environment for the data center.”

Having the center air-conditioned is something that is “critical” for the system, according to Sattler. 

Another important project for the summer is maintaining the on-campus houses and preparing for the increase in student houses in the 2016-17 academic year.

“We’re looking at a pretty fully enrollment for the upcoming year, so we’re looking at all the student houses currently and looking at what kinds of things need done,” Sattler said.

Sattler said one house specifically, 366 Richhill St., will need a new roof to be able to house the students planned to live in that house next year.

Sattler and Jessica Sumpter, assistant dean of Student Services, have already walked around all the houses and made a list for maintenance projects. 

“We probably won’t be able to finish in one summer, but we’re going to begin a process to improve all of our student houses on campus,” Sattler said. “It may take a couple of years to get done, but we’re going to start pecking away at it.”