COLIN PERRY
Staff Writer
Returning students and faculty to Fredonia know that the only things certain in life are death, taxes and construction.
The annual Consolidated Operating Budget released by the Department for Finance and Administration last week contains information on a number of upcoming construction projects slated to begin in the coming months.
One of the newest additions to campus — potentially beginning in the Spring — will be a 13,000 square-feet Admissions Center off of Symphony Circle. With an estimated cost of $6.1 million, it will contain offices for undergraduate and graduate admissions, meeting rooms and classrooms, among other things.
In the face of an ongoing admissions crisis, the decision to build may be seen by some as being motivated by declining enrollment. But according to Director of Facilities Planning Markus Kessler, the creation of a new building to house admissions has been an ongoing priority for the university for nearly a decade.
“It doesn’t accommodate what admissions needs,” he said of Fenner House, the current admissions building. “When you start using a house for any type of function other than what it was intended for, it becomes very difficult to grow.”
Fenner House was designed in 1860 and repurposed by the university a century later in the 1960s. While in the past, admissions offices have occupied multiple buildings (including a second house and a trailer), the new structure would be the first time the university would have them in a space designed for their use.
Kessler added that the project is about greeting parents and students in a comfortable environment.
“It’s the first place that students and parents are introduced to the campus, and I think first impressions are very important,” he said.
Not all work will be done on completely new structures, however, as an estimated $4.5 million “exterior rehab” on McEwen Hall is scheduled to begin next summer. According to the budget, the project will not only entail replacing all of the building’s windows, but removing “all hazardous material” associated with them as well. Because of the building’s age, it currently contains asbestos and PCBs (a carcinogenic compound) inside and around its windows.
While for many people the word “asbestos” alone is enough to start panicking, Kessler stressed that nobody is in danger.
“When people hear about asbestos, sometimes people get concerned,” he said, “and that’s not to say they don’t need to be concerned, but as long as it’s not friable, where the particles are in the air, everyone is safe … Regardless, it’s bad stuff and we don’t want it in our buildings.”
Kessler said that the project is not motivated by an urgent need to remove the hazardous material, but rather because the other repairs have made it a priority.
“It’s basically time because the windows are old, they’re leaking, they’re single-paned and they’re not energy efficient,” he said, adding, “for us, it’s about keeping the faculty and our students safe, so any chance we get at taking [potentially-hazardous material] out, we do. We prefer that we remove it when we can because eventually we know we’re going to have to.”
The project is planned to only take two summers, after which the university will look at further renovations in Rockefeller Arts Center and Reed Library, which were both built using the same potentially-hazardous materials.
While McEwen Hall is nearly 50 years old, a much-newer space will also be renovated after the Spring 2016 semester: Starbucks. In the Consolidated Operating Budget is the mention of the “10 year renovation” of the restaurant, but coffee-lovers across campus need not worry; the renovation marks a decade since it first opened, and should only take four to six weeks beginning the Monday after commencement.
The remodel is required per the terms of the franchise agreement between Starbucks Coffee and the Faculty Student Association (FSA), and will involve a complete design overhaul but little else. “The student needs that are being met [with the new design] are not any more than are being met today,” said FSA Executive Director Darin R. A. Schulz, adding that it will fit the newest design concept Starbucks has at each of its stores.
The estimated price tag for the remodel per Starbucks is set at $200,000, which does not include labor costs. Schulz predicts that the project as a whole will cost anywhere between $350 and $400 thousand.
“It’s a little more costly than what we could do ourselves,” he said. “I felt that we could do this more cost-effectively and still make it look phenomenal without having to redo the whole store, but that was not our choice.”
Schulz added that he was “frustrated as a steward for trying to do things as cost effectively for this campus as possible,” but recognizes the importance of retaining the FSA’s agreement with the company.
“Without a Starbucks, the feel of the campus would change significantly,” Schulz said.
On the whole, student opinion is generally divided about capital construction projects. Some, like junior sociology major Rachel Turner, feel that there are more important places the university could choose to spend money on.
“I’m not impressed by giant glass and steel buildings,” Turner said. “I just want the best [education] I can get for my money. It might impress the parents and there’s a higher standard for what campuses have to look like now, but that’s not the true heart of things.”
Turner expressed doubts that new projects would make much of a difference in Fredonia’s future, contrasting the Science Center, which was designed in part to draw STEM students toward the college, with the sharp drop in enrollment that followed its unveiling.
“It makes sense to spend money to build something that you hope will bring improvement in the future, but the results are not matching up to that,” she said.
Others, like sophomore sociology and women and gender studies double-major Olivia Bell, are less critical.
“We get a lot of money, even if enrollment is down,” she said. “I don’t see a problem with us spending money renovating Starbucks or using it to better our campus.”
Despite differences in opinion, students and faculty can be assured of one fact when it comes to construction on campus: as long as the weather permits, it will continue.