Some students may have noticed the rust accumulating under the bridge that connects the Lory Student Center to the Engineering building. Or maybe, after a rainy night, they have been walking to class and gotten dripped on.

As members of a senior civil engineering design class at Colorado State University, Jerome Brunelle and his team are designing a plan to reconstruct the 37-year-old bridge.

“There are a lot of parts where it leaks, it’s broken and rusted out in a lot of spots, and a lot of people just don’t think it goes with the design of the new LSC structure,” Brunelle said.

The proposal includes a student fee increase to fund the project. It has not been submitted for review or considered for approval yet. To share your opinion with the designers, take the online survey.

Senior engineering majors Tanner Waldron, Samantha Katz, Ian Swensson, Matthew MacDonnell, Amanda Higley and Jerome Brunelle are all working on the Lory Student Center Engineering Building Connection project proposal.

Chris Thornton, an associate professor at CSU, teaches the course and it takes a full year to complete. The first semester student teams build proposals, and the second semester they create and finalize designs that they hope the University will consider.

“We will pick a few different alternatives next semester, a few different designs, and then pick a final one to go further with,” Brunelle said. “We decide on that with Mike Ellis.”

Brunelle will be focusing on the aesthetics of the bridge and the bridge canopy. To gather student input, Waldron designed a survey for the CSU community. It will be used in reference as to how often students and faculty use the connection and what designs they would like to see.

“It’s interesting to see what people want and what they wouldn’t want because there’s not a lot of times when student input is taken into consideration with projects on campus,” Katz said. “I feel like that gives us a little bit of an edge on our project.”

Waldron will design the bridge. He hopes to work in design at a structural engineering company when he graduates. For him, the project is great practice.

“All civils have to take this class and it definitely helps you gear towards your future as an engineer,” Waldron said.

Collegian Construction Beat Reporter Veronica Baas can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @vcbaas.