Travis dorms receiving facelift

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The dormitory campus at Travis Air Force Base is in the midst of $6 million renovation that began last year.

During the process, which will last into 2011, five buildings are scheduled to receive new carpeting, revised bathrooms and a fresh coat of paint, according to members of the 60th Civil Engineer Squadron who work on the dorm campus.

"We're doing it to make life better for Airmen living in the dorms," said Sara Underwood, chief of program development with the 60th CES.

The funds to give a facelift to buildings 1304, 1305, 1308, 1309 and 1334 come from Air Mobility Command as part of an Air Force-wide dorm initiative program, Mrs. Underwood said.

The changes are an offshoot of the Year of the Air Force Family campaign, which aims to create as well as better expose programs already in place to help Airmen as well as their families.

Once the renovations are complete and Airmen move back in, the goal is to arrange the dorm residence by squadron, which Staff Sgt. Antwaun Johnson and his cohorts in the dorm management office refer to as "squadron integration."

"One thing important to commanders it to keep that unit camaraderie and unit integration," Mrs. Underwood said. "We're definitely working hard to keep folks from the same units together."

Mrs. Underwood said the benefits of this tie in with wingman priorities.

"It's about knowing what folks are doing outside of work," she said. "It helps keep an eye on them to make sure they're not having morale issues. The idea is if people play together, they work together better."

An in-progress idea to encourage friendly competition between the squadron-specific dormitories is a dorm building of the quarter competition. As-yet undecided cash prizes would be awarded for the tenants to spend on sprucing up the building in the day rooms and community areas.

"The point is to make it look more like a home," Sergeant Johnson said. Since the renovations are in various stages of completion, Master Sgt. Matthew Grelck, the dorm superintendent for the 60th CES, expects the reaction to be boldest when the new bathrooms are unveiled.

"The reaction to the bathrooms is going to be fantastic compared to just paint and carpet," Sergeant Grelck said. "That coupled with the paint and the carpet makes it like a newer dorm."

Buildings 1304 and 1309 are receiving improvements now, with carpeting laid down in 1309 as recently as last week, Sergeant Johnson said. The $6 million allowed bathrooms to be added to the renovation plan for buildings 1309 and 1305, Sergeant Grelck said.

The buildings being renovated, built in the 1950s, last received upgrades as recently as 1993. Beginning in 1996, seven new dorm buildings were built before the turn of the millennium.

Building 1307, currently being used to house some of the servicemembers displaced by the renovations, is targeted for demolition at the project's completion, Mrs. Underwood said. However, the funds to do this have not yet been secured, Sergeant Grelck added.

Sergeant Grelck asked Airmen and other servicemembers who reside on the dorm campus to please have patience while the renovations continue.

"Although it's going to cause a lot of heartache because we're moving people around, the end goal is better dorms until we get new dorms," he said. "They're on the horizon, but the horizon's far away at this point."

For more information, visit the Sharepoint Web site and click on the "Dorms" logo or call Sergeant Grelck at 424-0160 or Sergeant Johnson at 424-5829.