Students could spend the coming years learning under freshly cut grass.

Plans are in motion to replace the roofs on Faner Hall and the Agriculture Building.

Phil Gatton, director of the Physical Plant, said campus administrators are considering an energy efficient alternative to roof building, known as Green Roofs.

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According to the Green Roof Web site, Green Roofs are grassy spaces on the top of a man-made structure. The roofs, widely used in Europe, also cut down on maintenance and replacement costs and create savings on heating and cooling costs, according to the site.

Jay Hamblin, a junior from Bloomington studying automotive technology, said that for most of last semester he saw buckets collecting water when he used the computer lab in Faner Hall.

To cope with the deteriorating roofs in the Agriculture Building, bags have been attached to problem areas on the ceiling to collect water. Tubes underneath the bags transport the water into large, plastic garbage cans below.

C.K. Hsu, a research assistant in plant, soil and agricultural systems, said leaking roofs in the Agricultural Building destroyed his research.

“I had been researching a certain bacteria and the leaking water ruined about a week’s worth of work,” Hsu said.

Gatton said the project is part of a long-term maintenance plan up for vote at the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday. If the board approves the plan, administrators would take more steps to decide what direction to go with the new roofs, Gatton said.

Gatton said the project must be put through the Board of Trustees because it would cost more than $250,000.

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According to the board’s Web site, the proposed roof work will happen on roof areas B and C in the Agriculture Building and Wings A, B and C in Faner Hall.

Gatton said there have been problems with both building’s roofs for a while and the Physical Plant decided to take the funds from the facility maintenance fee to pay for the project.

He said if the board approves the plan, it could take up to six months of planning and preparation before the project could begin. Construction on the new roofs could begin as early as late fall, Gatton said.

This would be the first major project resulting from the facility maintenance fee. The fee would eventually pay to fix around $102 million in deferred maintenance throughout the university, including classroom improvements and repairs to underground steam tunnels.

Luke McCormick can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 259 or [email protected].