For the last of couple semesters, students have detoured their trip to class in order to avoid construction equipment, gated areas and gaping holes in various parts of campus.

Most of the visible construction is due to the $31 million electrical infrastructure upgrade, which aims to renew the aging electrical infrastructure. The project began February 2015 and is expected to be completed by this September.

“The old system is 60 years old and it’s failing,” said Mike Mosinski, the grounds manager in plant operations. “The new system will actually have monitoring so we will now how much power each building is using. If we have power outages, we will also know exactly where the problems are so stuff can be fixed.”

According to the Facilities Management section of the Fresno State website, the upgrade will consist of approximately 44,000 feet of trenching and backfill to install new underground electrical lines. The old equipment will be replaced with the latest technology to improve safety, modernize infrastructure and increase potential capacity for future growth.

“The basic idea about the project is that we are replacing the electrical infrastructure on the whole campus,” Mosinski said.

The project is in its last months of construction, Mosinski said. Approximately 95 percent of the underground conduits are installed and the switchgear station, designed to protect and isolate electrical equipment, located east of Jackson Avenue, south of Barstow Avenue by the Engineering East Building is partially completed. The last step would be to switch over the power in each building from the old system to the new one.

“This semester you won’t see as much construction related to this project but we still have a lot of other projects up and coming,” Mosinski said. “We tried to mitigate the impact as much as we can and do it over breaks or weekends and off hours and we have impacted a few parking stalls but we have been trying to do everything we can to try to mitigate that as much as possible.”

One of the newly initiated projects is the Fresno State’s Warmerdam Field $2.6 million facelift, which began Dec. 14. The current nine-lane, 400-meter track, which was constructed in 1976, is utilized by the athletics department, kinesiology classes, reserve officer training corps (ROTC), students and other university employees. During the reconstruction process the Track & Field team will be practicing at Buchanan High School’s Veterans Memorial Stadium.

“The track is completely demolished now and the reconstruction process has begun,” Mosinski said. “The rain just saturated the site and has made it hard to work now, where there will have to probably pull out for a few days.”

The new facility will include a safer, newer, more modern layout, Mosinski said. According to the Track & Field Fresno State website, the track will include a wider shape, eight-lane, all-weather track which will accommodate more infield activities, along with a high-jump area, long- and triple-jump runways, two pole vault runways, hammer cage and javelin improvements.

The new track will still be a practice facility and will not be set set up for campus track meets, Mosinski said.

“The track facility is an area we have identified as needing improvements,” Fresno State Director of Athletics Jim Bartko said. “The Warmerdam Field project will greatly benefit our student-athletes and the university as well, and the improvements represent an investment in our track and field program as it looks to restore its proud tradition.”

The project is scheduled to be completed by this summer.