As the backhoes and bulldozers of the Big Dig infuse Boston, Harvard is seeing its share of construction equipment as well.

With the campus only sparsely populated by summer school students, summer is prime time for renovations and new construction.

Except for a few bumps in the road, Harvard's construction projects are sticking to schedule, and the results of the $2.1 million capital campaign are starting to show.

Truncated Tower

The home of Ec 10 lectures and first-year dining is one of the many buildings on campus getting a face-lift.

Contractors are working to restore Memorial Hall's truncated tower, which burned down in 1956. Last spring, the University earmarked $4 million to restore the structure to its original Gothic grandeur.

"It's so exciting to have it actually in construction," said project manager Elizabeth Randall.

The construction will still be in progress when students return in September, but Randall says the project will be as little nuisance as possible.

"My hope is that we're going to get all of the heavy lifting and noise done before the school year starts," she said.

Summer work atop the 140-ft. tower is proceeding on schedule. The base steel for the tower has been installed, and the workers will spend three days in late August hoisting pieces of the tower roof into place.

"We're going to be lifting these major steel structures by crane," Randall said. "It's going to be a very cool thing."

Randall said if construction keeps progressing smoothly, the project will be complete by the end of December.

"We have no reason to think there will be a problem," she said.

Them Bones

The renovation of Holden Chapel basement is one of the few summer construction projects that hit an unexpected stumbling block. When workers found human remains in the basement walls, construction ground to a halt.