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JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
As Fredonia struggles with decreased enrollment, it has become more and more common to see empty facilities like Hendrix and Erie Hall close down in part or in whole due to lack of demand. Houghton Hall, although not boarded up, has been closed until further notice with little fanfare from the administration.
“I thought it was strange that there was this building filled with classes and displaced theatre faculty [from the new Rockefeller Arts Center renovations], and now the building is suddenly dead,” said senior acting major Angelo Heimowitz.
What may not be clear to students is that Houghton’s closing was not a result of downsizing, but of future renovations that are planned to bring Houghton up to the same level as the newly built Science Center.
“Houghton is not currently in use,” said Director of Facilities Services Kevin Cloos. “Houghton is scheduled to be renovated as part of the opening of [the] Science Center.”
Part of the motivation to renovate Houghton started when Director of Facilities Planning Markus Kessler overheard a prospective student talking to her mother during a visit to Houghton.
“I heard a young girl say to her mother, ‘Mom, why would I come here when my high school’s science labs look a hundred times better than this,’” said Kessler. “Even though we have absolutely fantastic programs here, sometimes the facilities outweigh the program because visiting students can see and walk around the facilities, but can’t know how fantastic a teacher is just by looking at them.”
The Houghton renovations began as a plan to revitalize the building, with high aspirations of gathering all STEM programs on campus together.
“The first floor and the basement level would have been [the Departments of] Physics, Geosciences, an animal colony, and the Jewett Museum,” said Kessler. “Mathematics and Computer Sciences would be on the second floor, and along with the Science Center would form a complete, consolidated home for STEM fields on campus.”
Unfortunately, harsh financial realities struck and forced Facilities Planning to reevaluate the scope of the project.
“When we took a look at Houghton and started designing, there was a belief that the budget would always allow us to have $14 million to $16 million a year to complete critical maintenance,” said Kessler. “Soon, instead of getting $16 million, we were getting $4 million.”
Since that initial cut, Fredonia is getting even less funding to a new formula introduced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that ties funding directly to student enrolment. Eventually, a new fund was made available for “shovel-ready” projects like the Houghton renovation, although even the new funding was not without limitations.
“[The current plan] is a watered-down version, and won’t be completely like what we originally designed,” Kessler said.
The current plan will still consist of renovations to the facilities, but will also focus on making sure that Houghton remains a safe a stable building.
“We’re going to meet with the Construction Fund in the middle of February to talk about Houghton,” Kessler said. “We want to replace the windows and a lot of the masonry, and then get going on some of the other construction and development.”
Once funding is secured and the project has been “value-engineered” to an acceptable price, then a timetable will be made to carry out the renovations.
“What many don’t realize is that the Science Center, for me, started in 2001,” Kessler said. “We started design on the new part of RAC in 2010. What many students don’t realize is that this can be a very long, very difficult process.”
If all goes well, Kessler hopes that the renovations on the exterior of Houghton can begin by the summer of 2018, with internal renovations beginning by 2019.