Dining changes proved the big issue with members of the WSA as Dean of Campus Programs Rick Culliton outlined plans for the Usdan University Center last Sunday.
Culliton, the future director of the new University Center, pointed to floor plans that showed the University Center as an arrowhead-shaped building pointing away from Andrus Field with one side along Wyllys Avenue and another lining up with the old squash courts.
Culliton explained how space is to be used in the University Center, saying that different dining options will be offered on three separate floors. He said that he expects the building will have hours of operation from 8 a.m. until 1 to 2 a.m.
In response to WSA questions on dining at the Center, Culliton said that most of the specifics have not been worked out and that by the time of the Center’s completion in July 2007, Aramark may not even necessarily be the University’s food service provider.
With much of the space from the old Alumni Gymnasium cleared, Cullition said that construction crews are currently working on putting in place infrastructure to heat the new building.
“Today they’re working pretty furiously to move forward and get utilities that previously ran through that spot on campus […] to run through the basement of the new building, ” Culliton said.
The first floor of the new Center will be centered around a large living space with a café similar in size to Pi Café. The floor will also hold a larger post office, the box office and offices for the WSA and the building’s administration. The floor will have two large meetings rooms for student groups that will seat 50 and 70 people, according to Culliton. In the post office, all students will have their own mailboxes and the boxes will be larger in size.
Culliton said the first floor will also contain a retail shop where Broad Street Books can sell University merchandise and art supplies, making up for the closing of Color Mart, the art supply store formerly located next to Broad Street Books.
The next floor up will have two large dining areas that can seat over 600 people and should serve as a major dining hub on campus. It will have large windows and an outdoor terrace looking out onto Andrus Field.
WSA member Nya Roy ’07 asked whether the Vegan Café would be preserved. Culliton said that something comparable to Vegan Café would be a part of the new Center.
The top floor will hold the new University Club, which is a dining venue that had previously existed on campus and is geared toward faculty and staff. The 130-seat facility will also have a reception area and an outdoor terrace smaller than the one on the floor below it, according to Culliton.
The basement floor will have a location for students to pick up their larger-sized packages, a home for the steel drums and rooms for the football team that will double as game rooms when not in use by the teams.
“We’re calling them the multi-purpose rooms because the rest of the year we’ll take the benches out of there and we’ll have space that can be used for a variety of purposes that can be schedule and used by any student groups that want,” he said.
The basement will also contain a kosher kitchen to replace the current dining venue on campus. Culliton said that this way, students choosing to eat kosher foods do not have to eat separately.
The basement will include a corridor leading to the adjoining Fayerweather Building, which was torn back to its original 1892 size and is being renovated to feature a two-room floor for theater and dance below a larger ballroom. The ballroom will be able to fit 600 people standing and 280 for a seated meal.
“This will be bigger than any place we have on campus,” Culliton said.
The new University Center, which will be wireless and handicapped accessible, according to Culliton, will take the place of Mocon and the current Campus Center, which will be used for social science faculty offices and classrooms.
“At this point I don’t think there’s a planned use for Mocon,” Culliton said.
WSA member Nathan Ratner ’09 asked why the University Center was not in the center of campus. Culliton answered that it was at the campus’s geographic center.
WSA representatives focused many of their questions around dining policy and Culliton deferred several of those questions to upcoming discussions of the dining services advisory committee on which both members of the WSA and Administration sit.
“The dining services advisory committee […] is going to be central to looking at the dining program and how the dining program fits into this building,” Culliton said.
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