Money allotted for dining facility survey
By Lara Hendrickson
Staff Reporter

Outside consultants will soon be hired to analyze whether a renovation of the Student Center and the construction of a free-standing dining facility in the near future are plausible, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Don Mills said Wednesday.

Mills said the problem with the Student Center is that the whole area is designed around food and in order to renovate the building, the dining facility must be moved out. He said about $200,000 is being set aside from the university capital budget to do engineering and architecture tests in order to assess whether the free-standing dining facility can be made.

“The free-standing facility may be physically or visually attached (to the Student Center),” Mills said. “For example, landscaping might connect it to the Student Center.”

Mills also said he is aware students are not entirely happy with the food selection in the current eating facility.

“The cool thing about a move from the Student Center is that a new dining facility would be better able to meet the needs of the students,” Mills said.

Junior psychology major Liz Deering said The Main and Student Center “desperately” need renovation.

“The Student Center feels old and outdated,” Deering said. “If renovations mean moving eating facilities out, then so be it. Students will become accustomed to eating somewhere else.”

Mills said the $200,000 must be set aside for an architect with creativity and for a builder who can give good advice to make sure the plans are feasible at all. He said the money is just a small percentage of what the total cost of moving and renovating would be. Mills said the total project would likely cost between $10 and $12 million and would take between 12 and 15 months to complete.

Mills said if they decide a free-standing dining facility and Student Center renovation is monetarily possible, revenue will come from several sources, including bonds, gifts and revenue from commerce. He said the initial $200,000 will come specifically from funding for relatively small projects.

Mills said consulting plans would most likely begin in the summer, but the moving of the dining facility would not occur until 2005 at the earliest.

“It might be kind of a hassle at first if the Student Center is under construction,” Paige Wilson, a freshman premajor said. “But it would be completely worth it for better food and a really nice Student Center.”

Lara Hendrickson