Student Union officials sat with folded arms and shaking heads Thursday morning as they listened to reports from contractors about the progress of Student Union construction. Before the meeting started, many in the Council Room already knew what the news would be. Construction has been delayed — again.The expected completion date for Phase I of Union construction has been moved back from mid-November. Though there were brief, quiet comments about opening new pieces of the Union before the semester is finished, most officials are now looking to early 2009 for the grand opening.”At best they are talking about opening after Thanksgiving,” said Ken Bueche, Union associate director. “Realistically speaking, though, I don’t expect us to be done until at least January.”After Hurricane Gustav trampled Baton Rouge’s electrical grid, the construction process halted for two weeks and set contractors back more than expected. With workers taking care of their affairs at home instead of spending time in the Union, delays stacked up and disrupted the schedule.”The latest hurricane has added about $50 million to both LSU and Southern University projects,” said Tom Rish, senior manager for the state’s Office of Facility, Planning and Control. “Gustav affected all goods and services.”Rish refused to comment on exactly how the $50 million will be allocated.During the meeting, contractors tackled two of the main issues confronting the construction process: rerouting duct work and working through bureaucratic barriers.According to Bueche, routing new duct work while maintaining running air conditioning in the Union has been one of construction’s major roadblocks. Because old duct work has to be removed to run new pieces, contractors have been hard pressed to find time to work out the problem.When workers pulled up the floor boards of the mechanical penthouse to run duct work to the third floor, they discovered the floor beams were spaced closer together than the original blueprints suggested. To fit through the third floor ceiling, the sheet metal ducts had to be resized and rebuilt.”We have a historic building here, and a lot of the information we have from the original plans is not accurate,” Rish said, Many of the problems that have arisen during the long first phase of construction have been because of unforeseen conflicts with the building’s original blueprints. “I’m surprised they could even build this building with the original blueprints,” said Joe Jody, Union project manager and director for quality control for Grace and Herbert Architects. A series of change orders, which must go through the state Legislature if they involve changes costing more than $50,000, have also slowed the construction process. Getting approvals from both the University and the state have made it difficult to adapt to problems as they arise, such as resizing duct work or correcting structural issues. Shirley Plakidas, Union director, said she was mostly concerned with the new time tables being presented.Delays in Phase I may have an impact on the scheduled start of Phase II, which would close down the Tiger Lair and temporarily relocate food services to the billiard room of the Live Oak Lounge. Phase II is scheduled to begin in spring 2009.—-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]