Earthquake Recovery Status

There have been some questions after recent news articles about the status of the Dickinson Building at the Fredericksburg Campus. To reduce rumors and speculation, here are some bullets on the status as of September 19, 2011:

• The building is repairable.
• Estimates mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the Board meeting were based on experience at other institutions after similar disasters and were intended to give worst-case scenarios.
• The State has given initial expedited approval to contract with the firm that has designed the Phase III Building being constructed (Clark-Nexsen) and they will shortly begin detailed analysis and evaluation. Clark-Nexsen will take about a month to present a remediation plan. Final written approval is pending.
• Only after this plan will we have a clear idea of how long the repairs will take. We will announce this as soon as we know.
• We hope to get expedited approvals from the State for a construction company that specializes in such work. That is still pending and an answer here will help determine how long before work is started and thus finished.
• We hope to piggy back planned upgrades in Dickinson with the remediation to speed up our being able to fully move back in. These upgrades are part of the Building III project and will expand student services and student activities, create a small student lounge, and create a larger bookstore.
• Building III is on target to be ready for occupancy in the middle of the Spring semester. We are meeting now to determine a plan for what and when moves there, as well as a staged process of moving back into Dickinson. Again, we will announce the plan in outline as soon as we have firmer dates.
• As soon as leases are signed, we will post here and elsewhere the locations of services and programs moved off-site.
• Employees will receive updates in the electronic newsletter, Germane, available through Germanna Central our SharePoint site. Updates for faculty and staff will also be made during College Learning Day on September 27 at the Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper. Open Forums with the President have been held and will continue to be held---watch for announcements.

Please comment here with any questions and we will respond with clarifications as soon as possible. Please check back to this blog periodically as well.

My deepest thanks go out to all of Germanna's students, partners, faculty and staff for their patient understanding and collaboration during these difficult times.

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Factoid: The Fredericksburg Area Campus, which had the most damage, was the closest of our locations to the earthquake's epicenter at 27 miles. The Culpeper site, which has probably felt more aftershocks, was 31 miles from the epicenter. Our Locust Grove Campus is actually the farthest away from the epicenter at about 31.5 miles distance.