Noise from construction bothersome

When sophomore Katie Lang ventures out of her Tower C bedroom in the morning, the first… When sophomore Katie Lang ventures out of her Tower C bedroom in the morning, the first thing she notices is the hum of jackhammer blasts below her feet, not to mention the constant hammering sounds traveling up the elevator shafts. It’s an annoyance, an unavoidable process that will last until next fall when renovations on Towers’ dining facilities will end.

Market Central is slated to open in the fall of 2007. Mascaro Construction, the company overseeing the project, has taken measures in order to reduce the disturbance in students’ lives. However, some students like Lang complain that the noise of construction is becoming a distraction.

“It’s enough to wake you up in the morning and take away from your concentration, but it’s not deafening,” Lang, who lives on the ninth floor of Tower C, said.

She said the noise often travels up the dorm’s elevator shafts and through heating ducts and pipes.

“You can definitely hear it in the bathroom,” she said.

For freshman Samantha Renfrow, the construction is only a nuisance when she isn’t in her room. Although the noise doesn’t reach her room on the 11th floor of Tower A, Renfrow said it is noticeable when she’s in other parts of Towers like the lobby, Eddie’s and the stairwells.

“The jackhammers really echo and reverberate in there,” she said.

According to Pitt spokesman John Fedele, construction crews haven’t received any recent complaints. There were complaints at the beginning of renovations, he said, when construction crews began heavy demolition at 7 a.m. Now, all noisy work like jackhammering begins at 9 a.m. Mascaro also installed extra sound insulation to alleviate noise leakage.

Additionally, construction will drastically decrease the week before and during finals in order to accommodate students.

“There won’t be any jackhammering,” Fedele said.

Renfrow wishes that the construction crews started renovations during winter break in order to get a head start before students returned to the University. That way, she said, they might have been able to get some of the noisiest work out of the way. However, she does acknowledge the difficulty in undertaking such a project, especially in a college dorm.

“Everyone runs on different schedules, and people study during all times of the day, so no matter when they do the construction, not everyone is going to be pleased,” she said.