Due to newly-arisen safety concerns, the office of Planning, Design, and Construction has been working over the summer to repair some flaws in the exterior of Cravens library.

Bryan Russell, director of PDC, said repairing the library was urgent because pieces of the building were falling out.

“We had some debris, over time, falling down nine stories to the ground, which creates a safety hazard around the building,” Russell said. “So that was our first priority to get repaired.”

He said PDC was made aware of the problem last fall and started making the repairs shortly after the school year ended in May.

“We have some failures that have occurred and they have occurred in the brick veneer,” Russell said.

He said the brick ledges that separate the floors of the building on the top three levels have expanded over time. As a result, he said, the borders between the floors have started to get pushed out.

Debbie Pace, director of the project, said a faulty roof contributed to the flaws in the building’s exterior.

She said the roof, which has never before been replaced, has been allowing water to seep into the masonry, contributing to the bricks’ expansion.

“It was at the end of its lifespan so we needed to replace that,” she said.

Russell said the school is paying for the project with money from a deferred maintenance fund, which he said is a pool of money set aside for emergency maintenance work.

The repairs will cost $970,909, Russell said.

He said PDC is planning another phase of the repairs next summer to make other repairs that are not urgently needed.

“There were other things identified on the exterior of the building that need to be maintained and repaired but they’re not safety issues,” Russell said. “We only have a limited amount of money so we actually have to prioritize in our meetings which projects get funded and it is usually safety first.”

Pace said the progress on the repairs has been slower than expected.

“We weren’t able to complete as much as we anticipated,” she said, adding that the ledge angles gave PDC some difficulties.

Russell said the project is being completed in two parts. The first part, which PDC finished in the second week of August, consisted of removing rows of bricks, reattaching the ledge angles, which connect the exterior to the building’s structure, and resetting the bricks.

Throughout the summer, he said, the library remained open despite the maintenance work.

“We actually put a fence around the perimeter of the building,” Russell said. “We put up barricades and put covered walkways so that people could still go in and out of the building and be safe and then we worked over the areas where pedestrians would go in and out of the building first.”

The second phase, he said, started immediately after the completion of the first step, and consists of replacing the roof.

He said PDC is planning another phase of the repairs next summer to make other repairs that are not urgently needed.

Pace said the progress on the repairs has been slower than expected.

“We weren’t able to complete as much as we anticipated,” she said, adding that the ledge angles gave PDC some difficulties.

Pace said the project is scheduled to be completed on Oct. 10, and despite earlier setbacks, is confident they can still make the deadline. “At this point, with the progress they’re making, they will definitely make that date,” she said.