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Summer construction underway at the University of Alaska Southeast is forcing staff and students to change routines.

Five roofs on student apartments and the roof of the Egan Library are being replaced, holes are being dug for the long-awaited pedestrian overpass over Glacier Highway and the wooden walkways for five contiguous campus buildings on Auke Lake are being reconstructed. The construction is routine summer maintenance on the campus.

North Pacific Erectors is replacing the walkways with concrete and metal. They are also building a new vestibule for the Novatney Building.

The walkways' reconstruction will cost the university about $25,000, the housing roofs $500,000 and the Egan Library roof $400,000. The pedestrian overpass, to be built next summer, will connect the Anderson Building near Auke Bay boat harbor with the main UAS campus and is part of a $10 million project the Legislature approved.

The boardwalks are 25 to 30 years old, scuffed and warped. They're part of the original work done when the campus was built from the 1960s to1982. Like all wood in Southeast Alaska, the walkways get wet and they won't hold paint anymore, said Keith Gerken, director of Facility Services.

The construction has made it difficult for staff and students who have had to find alternate routes to their destinations.

"It's a pain in the butt," said Michelle Moffitt, a financial aid worker. "It's nice, the new walkway's nice. But it's a pain to go all around and stuff. And especially when students don't really know. Like right now there are a lot of the new (masters in education) students and it's kind of difficult for them to navigate. To tell them, 'Oh you have to go to that building but you have to go around this way.'"

Bursar Pat Yearty said, "You work here and you get used to the same route, and then they change it." Yearty said with the old wood walkways, "They could paint it and three months later it was already ripped up and looking bad."

The work should be done in a couple of weeks, said foreman Jim Hendrickson. They are scheduled to demobilize on July 13.