Asa Fix
News Reporter

Just months after construction was complete on Mesa State’s new College Center, a freak accident occurred. Water pipes broke on the morning of Jan. 1. The College Center was flooded to a depth of several inches.
The building was checked at 6:30 p.m. the previous evening and everything was fine. The next day it was discovered that both floors on the west end of the building were flooded and water had already soaked numerous newly furnished rooms.
“To my understanding there were some heat pumps that failed, and as a result pipes froze and burst, sending water everywhere. At some places, water was standing around two to three inches,” Mesa State’s Director of Media Relations, Dana Nunn said,
Nunn said that the worst damage on the first floor was done to the Game Room, but the flood also took its toll on the Fireplace Lounge, the Art Gallery, the Mav Card office and the College Information Desk offices.
On the second floor, most of the damage was done to the Quiet Study Lounge, the Center for Student Involvement, the Criterion office, KMSA and the Design Studio.
The flood ruined many ceiling tiles, carpet, drywall and insulation. It all needed to be replaced, which required many hours of work by staff and contractors before students returned from Winter Break. The cost of the damage is not yet known.
“The good news is that we got people in here on New Year’s Day and they started working right away. I think it is amazing how quickly the repair work has gone,” Nunn said.
Many students who returned for the spring semester did not even notice that the building was flooded over the break.
Junior Margaret Siligo works in the Game Room, which incurred the most damage on the first floor of the new building.
“My friend told me about it when she returned from break and my boss e-mailed me a day later,” Siligo said. “I was really turned off about it. Everyone was hyped about this new building and it was like, a flood already?”
Siligo said things were pretty much back to normal when she returned to work from break, with the exception of a few lingering construction workers.
There are still repairs that need to be done in several of the rooms around campus, but other than that, everything was up and running by the time classes began.
“You know, sometimes when you open a new building there are kinks that need to be worked out and this one has been resolved,” Nunn said.

ajfix@mesastate.edu