Construction on BYU campus

Brigham Young University welcomed students back to school a few weeks ago. Students are confused by the construction on campus that began in the spring. One student said, “It’d be nice if we knew what it was for. I’m not opposed to construction as long as it has a purpose, but there is construction all over campus and all over the city of Provo, and nobody really knows what they are trying to accomplish.”

I went out to the three main spots on campus that are under construction to find out what they are working on. 

The construction right outside the Tanner building was announced last November when the board of trustees approved the plan to demolish and replace the previously existing faculty office building. The new faculty building will house faculty offices, the Department of Economics and the Department of Statistics. The construction will continue until the building is finished in the spring of 2020. And though it is a bit of an annoyance to commuting students, there is one common perk to the madness outside the Tanner building. “I can cross the street wherever I want, I don’t wait for the stop light which maybe is bad but since there aren’t cars passing I can cross whenever I want,” one student said.

The other construction site on campus is just outside the library and the MARB. While filming outside the library, I heard a lot of, “I do this every time!,” and saw a lot of students walking up to the fence, hopping on the wall and walking on the wall to get around the fence.  

Outside the MARB, one student said about the construction, “So there have been a couple times where they’ve been…I don’t know what they are doing, maybe digging or something. It kinda shakes the building a little bit and causes a rattling noise which is distracting. In my class, we all just looked around tried to figure out what it is was, and our professors have to stop, and then we try to get back on with it, but it’s really loud.”

Even though it appears as if there is no way to solve the inconvenience of all this construction on and off campus and the traffic it brings, the projects at both the library and the MARB, existing utility tunnels, and updates on the electrical substations are getting close to being finished. There will be other spots on campus that will need similar work done throughout the year. Todd Hollingshead from campus communications says, “We know these construction projects can present some inconveniences for students as they travel across campus, and we appreciate all our students who have been so patient with this work to help keep the infrastructure of campus updated.”