Community members who feel that there is a crunch for student activity space could see a solution -- if the University Center, included in the latest Board of Visitors' Buildings and Grounds Committee six-year capital outlay plan, is further approved and built according to schedule.
According to the plan, the center will provide approximately 40,000 square feet for student meetings, gatherings and performances, some of which will also accommodate student organizations.
The building's cost, as mentioned in the six-year plan, is currently budgeted at $30 million.
Christina Morell, assistant vice president for student affairs, said the University has been engaged in "preliminary conversations" concerning the development of a new University Center.
L.F. Payne, Buildings and Grounds Committee chair, said the project is "in a very new, embryonic stage."
Payne added that the idea of the University Center had not previously come before the Board formally.
"We just reviewed it this one time," Payne said. "As we look to the future we anticipate that there will be a need for more student space ... this concern has been brought to us by the administration of the University."
Payne added that no programs designed to determine the location or interior space usage of the University Center currently exist.
University architect David Neuman estimated that the University Center, as part of the 2008-2010 portion of the 2008-2014 six-year plan, would most likely be built four to five years from the point of the building's concept approval stage.
"Unfortunately, though, this is not something most current students will be around to see," Neuman said, noting that this concept approval stage has yet to transpire.
Current Space and Building Trends
Both Morell and Neuman said current student buildings, including Newcomb Hall, are somewhat lacking in their overall functionality and usage diversity.
"We are also focusing on Newcomb [Hall] and what can be done to improve the space we already have," Morell said.
Morell also said a key objective of the new University Center would be communal gathering and that the space must be both effective and appealing.
Morell and Neuman both stressed the need for the University Center, if it is built, to complement both existing structures and those capital building projects also awaiting further development, such as the South Lawn project and the Gateway to the Arts.
"Recently, there has been one big shift in the construction of University buildings -- capital projects," Morell said. "Whatever we do needs to be viable in the context of our other larger projects."
Neuman said the Gateway project in particular has caused the University Center project to be in a "state of flux."
"The South Lawn project is going to have certain things for students," Neuman said. "The Gateway to the Arts project and the Arts residence hall is going to have certain things for students. You need to be able to provide something different, something that is not going to overlap with other buildings you just built."
Neuman added that various factors affect the planning and development of the University Center, such as a push "to have decentralization of buildings on Grounds" as well as a need to keep the plans for a building fresh and the technologically up to date.
"When you are spending $30 million, you have to be sure that whatever you are building is not going to be outdated by the time it is actually built," Neuman said. "One of the first things we need to do is figure out whether we are centralizing or de-centralizing facilities."
Neuman said student buildings in particular are often more challenging than others to design well.
"Student buildings can be difficult to design since everybody has their own ideas about what should be in the building," Neuman said.
Funding the Project
Colette Sheehy, vice president for management and budget, said finding the funding necessary for the University Center's construction poses yet another hurdle.
"Originally, Student Affairs was very optimistic about being able to raise the required money through private donations and fundraisers ... but Student Affairs has not exactly been reliable in terms of being able to raise the required funding," Sheehy said. "Now [the required funding] is more likely to be raised through more traditional means used to build student buildings, such as student fees."
According to both the Board's Buildings and Grounds committee's six-year capital outlay plan and the Finance Committee's plans for the first biennium of the six-year plan, the proposed funding for the University Center would come from loans taken out by the University.
"Debt service and operating and maintenance costs after the center is completed will require an increase in student fees of approximately $170 per student," according to the Finance committee's plans.
Third-year Architecture student Brian Poulson, chair of Student Council's building and grounds committee, said although the $30 million and 40,000 square feet figures sound like vast expenditures of University resources, they might not be, given that the University is spending much more on other building projects. Poulson also noted that the use and type of the space, not the size, is what truly matters.
Looking Toward the Future
Poulson identified three shortcomings of current student space the project could potentially address.
"One is that there is not enough space for student organizations," Poulson said. "Two is that there is no place for students to just be seen, like the Pit at North Carolina, for example, or just a popular hang out spot that is not also a dining hall, etc. ... Three is the lack of space diversity -- right now, it is just the big organizations that have a lot of space."
Poulson said it needs to be determined, with student input, what the University Center is going to be and how it will relate both to Newcomb Hall and the student body.
"One of the biggest fears is not that students will not have any input, but that students will not be able to provide their input at the right time," Poulson said. "There needs to be transparency in building projects -- this University Center needs to be something that everyone can benefit from and something that everyone can see the benefit in having."
Poulson said O'Hill Dining Hall and the John Paul Jones Arena are good examples of "transparent" building projects, since they benefit the entire University community and not just a few select departments or organizations.
Poulson added that another idea might be to have some portion or space of the University Center set-aside for minority student gathering space. He said current space offerings, including the Office of African-American Affairs, are insufficient and, in many cases, too much like a dean's office.
In term of what the University Center would be, Morell said "we are all on the same page ... it's all about getting from A to Z."
Both Poulson and Neuman said they hope the University Center will move beyond the "preliminary planning stages" sometime this year.
"I am really confident that we can get something going this year," Neuman said.
Poulson said he and other students will be working in conjunction with Catherine Tobin, Council's vice president of student organizations, to evaluate current space and begin discussing the future.
Neuman said he thinks the idea of the University Center actually being built is a realistic possibility -- or a most probable scenario since the University Center is part of the first two years of the six-year plan -- but one that still requires careful and patient attention.
"Students should be cautiously optimistic about the University Center," Morell added.
Poulson also warned against embracing the concept of the University Center before it is has even been fully conceived of as a "real" University building project.
"Buildings are often built with the right intentions," Poulson said. "The question is whether or not the results will succeed in meeting them."
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