Facility Services to get new home

Relocation is scheduled to happen this December, will affect some processes.

Facility Services will pack up their operations and relocate down the street to its new home this December.

The department is currently found in Building 7 on Bacon Street on the Main Campus. Its new building is nearing completion off Cooper Street behind the George W. Newton Industrial & Engineering Technologies Center (Building 4).

“We’re going to be closer to the actual goings on of campus,” said Kieran Gunnigle, Facility Services’ Assistant Director. “It really is nice to have the outlook of, ‘Wow, we’re actually going to be in there with everyone else.’”

One of the building’s highlights is the addition of a 40-seat classroom that the Durham Tech community will be able to access.

“It’s a way for us to be able to give back to the College and campus by saying, ‘OK, we have this facility. We want to make it available for you guys to use,’” said Marshall Fuller, Facility Services Director and Construction Administrator.

Fuller said the department’s staff also looks forward to having the bigger space to hold their meetings and gatherings and to host meetings with industry partners and similar organizations.

The department plans to implement an automated inventory system after the move.

With this new system, whenever a technician is out in the field and needs a part, they can check the system to see if the department has it in stock before traveling to a hardware store to purchase it.

“It’s going to give us an opportunity to do some things with our inventory we’ve never been able to do before,” Fuller said.

Facility Services will keep all its general offerings intact. The staff, however, will be arranged differently. For example, Gunnigle said, there will no longer be a mailroom or assigned desks. Instead, everyone will operate from a workstation.

“It's going to be an open workspace for all of our technicians,” he said. “It's modernizing things quite a bit and really lending itself to this being a place where you're not setting up shop. You're just getting in, getting your stuff done, and then heading out to where you need to be.”

The department consists of 25 to 30 workers, with 12 to 15 being full time and the rest being contractors.

Fuller said the new building was necessary due to the age of the former Facilities services building.

“The cost to make the necessary repairs and bring the building up to code was cost prohibitive,” he said.

The building has stood since at least the '50s with Facilities being located there for at least 20 years, according to Fuller.

Funding for the new site comes from the Durham Board of County Commissioners’ 2016 Bond Referendum.

DTW Architects + Planners, of Durham, did the building’s design. The assigned Project Manager, Patricia Martin, is a Durham Tech graduate.

“She said she was glad to be back,” Fuller said.

Fuller said his staff had input on the plans.

Riggs-Harrod Builders, Inc., of Durham, is constructing the building.

There are currently no concrete plans for the future of Building 7, Fuller said.

Contact Stephanie Turner, Marketing and Media Relations Coordinator, at turners@durhamtech.edu.