Just a few months ago, McNeese State University sustained significant damage from Hurricane Laura, one of the strongest storms in the country’s history. Weeks later, Hurricane Delta brought twenty inches of rain. The school adopted a motto moving forward: “Our facilities may be damaged, but our morale and determination are not.”
We have witnessed firsthand the commitment to student safety as McNeese coordinated with State of Louisiana Facility Planning and Control, Cotton Global Disaster Solutions, and the state’s leading architectural and engineering firms for an aggressive construction schedule aimed at reopening campus this spring. Tipton Associates has worked primarily to restore the residential quadrant of campus. Students need a secure place to live as they return to animate campus, particularly with much of the region still recovering.
Burton Hall, a 150-bed residential housing unit, is the first to come back online, with other units soon to follow in early January. The repairs required roof replacement, window replacements, exterior masonry repairs and interior finish repairs. While Tipton is working on 20 other buildings across campus—some with little damage and currently occupied—this is the first of those shut down for repairs.
The safe reopening of Burton is significant accomplishment for McNeese, the State of Louisiana Facility Planning and Control, Cotton Global Disaster Solutions and Tipton Associates. The scope of this project required an extremely rapid response from the State and MSU to select designers for documentation, issue for bidding to contractors, and construction to meet a pre-January move-in date to bring students back to campus.
Read more about the recovery effort at comehomecowboys.com.