New phase of Judd restoration will continue over summer
Rather than being pushed to next year, the restoration of Judd Hall will continue with roof repairs, window replacement and masonry façade repairs.
April 12, 2021
The second half of Judd Hall’s routine restoration will start soon and include roof repairs, window replacement and masonry façade repairs.
Judd Hall is nearly a century old, and these renovations follow the classroom renovations and the replacement of the west side of the roof done two years ago.
According to Joe Wachowski, director of operations, the majority of work will take place this summer. Workers began the second half of the restoration by installing scaffolding and setting up cranes March 19.
Replacement of the stained glass windows by Pritzker Traubert Library may start soon with workers removing the windows on the east side of the library.
“It’s very labor intensive for the glass restorer to replace the medallions correctly,” Mr. Wachowski said. “How long window removal takes depends on how easy they are to remove.”
They actually wanted to push it off one more year, but I argued with them and said, ‘No, we need to get this done.'”
— Joe Wachowski
Roof repairs will start May 3. According to Mr. Wachowski, in the previous repair phase, it was easier to tear off the roof first and then have workers operate simultaneously. The aim for this phase is to also have simultaneous construction, though the construction of the roof and removal of the windows will start earlier than the replacement of stones due to the nature of how long it takes for the windows to be restored.
“You had the roofers, you had the window restorers, and you had the masons working at the same time. They were able to do it in concert,” Mr. Wachowski said. “I was amazed because a lot of the time on projects like this, most of your subcontractors, they can’t work at the same time, but they were able to get it done.”
Typically, two-phase restorations are completed in consecutive years. However, since the first phase left Judd Hall with a temporary roof expected to last a couple of years and how the University of Chicago is handling the funding of capital projects, the University delayed the funding of the remaining phase.
“They actually wanted to push it off one more year, but I argued with them and said, ‘No, we need to get this done,’” Mr. Wachowski said. “I just don’t like taking a chance of that temporary roof going bad, especially when we’re going into year three and then ruining all of our internal restoration that we’ve already done to the classrooms.”
