New US Forest Service offices at UAM
Y'all may remember my last blog post, where I showed this picture of me at the office, and promised more...well, here they are! Now, you'll have to indulge me for these details, as these are really intended mostly for a friend and former colleague of my, now retired, who hasn't seen the changes to the office space he spent many years working at... Most of you know that I work on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM). Even though I work for the USDA Forest Service, we are co-located with the UAM forestry program, and recently spent about a year in off-campus leased space as they renovated the part of the building we are stationed in. We have actually been moved to a newly renovated suite of offices on the second floor of the oldest wing of the building, on the west side of this building. Here is a picture of our "back door" entrance, with one of our "green rigs" parked alongside:
The second floor of this old wing used to have frequent leaks in the old flat roof that used to cover it, so one of the fixes they used when the renovated this building is they added the sloped roof (in grey in the picture above) to keep the water moving off...This also fit with some of the new construction that was a part of this $6 million dollar project, which was the construction of a new wing (the "Annex"), a part of which is picture below (taller building on the left of the new atrium):
The name on the new annex is "George R. Clippert", whose long-time generosity and recent family donations helped fund much of the addition and renovations. Below is another view of the new annex from the east. The parking lot in the foreground is new, and largely occupies the space where a different old building (Jeter Hall) had stood for years. It was in poor condition, and was torn down to expand the parking for this building, and other buildings in the vicinity. They did manage to save some of the large oaks that once surrounded Jeter Hall:
The Clippert Annex also sits where a road used to be, with parking along that road gone, plus some other spaces taken from where we used to park to build a courtyard, they needed to add these new spots. Below is a different view of the new annex looking north from a classroom building, plus the old wing (circa 1950s), now connect together by the atrium:
Here is a picture from inside the glass-walled atrium, on the second floor of this space, looking north towards what used to be the back parking area of the building (which is really now the main entrance to the new annex):
Note that on the first floor, on the right side of the picture, you can see dark windows that go to the new UAM forestry office. The picture below is on the first floor of the atrium/annex, looking towards the stairwell, and the stainless steel door that makes it possible for our federal office to be located on the second floor of a building:
Yes, you probably guessed it--we now have an elevator to permit access to handicapped persons to the second floor! Note the red chairs and carpet on the left side of the picture above...the picture below is looking west into the old wing of the forestry building:
The stone wall with the painting hanging on it used to be the exterior wall of the building, and my retired colleague used to keep plants there that he tended and would periodically plant around campus (or give away--we have several still growing in our backyard). The double door in the picture above were actually cut into the side wall which led into the infamous "spider closet" where we stored office supplies. The picture below is looking down our former hallway to the east--we used to have most of the space down this hall, with our main office and lunch room on the right, and my office and several others on the left. The main office is now lab space, and they've reconfigured our offices into new ones:
The old common area in the old building is still there, largely as it was, with the exception of new trophy cases, a new front entrance, and new tile:
The picture below is looking from the very west end of the second floor hallway down towards the new annex. The area on the right is our office suite, which has two doors:
The one closest to the camera and the next one down on the right define our space, which used to hold classrooms. Below is a picture of our new main entrance:
Our outside doors enter into an interior hallway, from which other rooms open. The extreme west end of the suite houses our break room, which includes a sink, plenty of cabinets, and a place for a fridge:
The small white fridge in this picture has now been replaced with the former fridge from our house--Hope got a new fridge for Valentine's Day this year! Leaving the break room, you can look down our interior hall, and see offices to the right (mine is the one with the open door):
The other (east) end of the hall has our mail and file room:
The carpet cleaner equipment in the picture above was brought in to extract water from my carpet the other week--newly remodeled space isn't quite water tight yet, and a nasty thunderstorm managed to get water into my carpet! Not a reassuring thought, as I'm hearing rumbles of thunder in the distance right now... Anyhow, the picture below shows my office as it is currently configured:
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