With more than 140 classrooms on the first three floors alone, making the trip up the Haley Center's caged-in, cement stairs has become habit to most of Auburn's 24,000 students.
Built in 1969, this iconic building has seen its fair share of maintenance and repairs. However, one outside stairwell on the Haley concourse side has been closed and barricaded for months.
Lloyd Albert, interim director of maintenance, said the stairwell is blocked because there are falling chunks of concrete from where the rebar inside has begun to rust.
As to why it has taken so long? They simply forgot.
"I don't know how that one was forgotten like it was," Albert said. "We need to get it fixed right away."
The normal process for building repairs is to immediately bring a contractor in to look at the affected area, make the necessary repairs and put it back into use as quickly as possible.
"We watch [the cracks], and as they look like they are fixing to give way or something, we go and take care of them," Albert said. "Our No. 1 goal is to keep them from falling on somebody. When we see a spot, we barricade it off, take them down, clean them up, patch what we can patch and make sure it is safe for students."
Though he wasn't sure how long ago they came, Albert said a representative of LBYD Civil and Structural Engineering came out to look at the stairwell, which resulted in the original barricade.
A return visit by the engineering firm to look at the damage as well as other cracks and falling cement around Haley Center, is in the works, though there is no official time frame for when the repairs will be made.
Some students said they were surprised at the reason for the closed stairwell.
"That's concerning because there's a lot of traffic there," said Richard Davis, senior in microbiology and theatre. "I guess the University has to do what it can with the funds it has, but I'm sure there's got to be something being built somewhere that can be put on the backburner to keep people safe."
Not only is it concerning from a safety perspective, it also causes frustration among students trying to get to class.
Amy Baker, junior in general science education, said she was wondering why the stairs were closed because it is an inconvenience between classes.
"When I had an 8 o'clock class last semester, it was really annoying because it bottlenecks right here, and you are trying to fit people going out and going in at one time, down one staircase," Baker said.
New facilities springing up all over campus, from the new Student Center and Arena to the Village and Shelby Center complex, the Haley Center and all of its problems are being forgotten, leaving it to crumble onto the heads of unsuspecting students.
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