Campus center panel to decide on details

Continuing its slow progress towards the completion of a new campus center, the Revlon Campus Center building committee will spend the next two months ironing out details which will be crucial in determining the character and contents of center. Though the center's architects -- Kohn, Pederson and Fox -- presented one vision of the building in January, the committee will actually decide what goes where, and how much it will cost, before winter break. Vice President for Facilities Management Arthur Gravina said the eight-member committee will make a list of priorities of what should be included in the center. "There is a critical mass that says if this doesn't happen, don't spend penny one," Gravina said. "We're not going to build a building for the 21st century that fails." Other committee responsibilities include deciding on landscaping, planning for energy efficiency and staying within the University's budget. Vice Provost for University Life Kim Morrisson, who is chairing the committee, said she expects the final plan for the center to be ready for approval at the end of this academic year. The committee has been meeting each month since its formation in April, and is planning on meeting more frequently in the next several months. In December, the committee is expected to be able to say what rooms will be in the building, but will not know dimensions or locations of anything. The University has asked the architects who made the presentation at the January Trustees meeting to come up with less expensive options for the center's construction. The projected cost of the new center is $60 million, Vice President for Development Rick Nahm said last month. Nahm said his office is aiming to raise $30 million for the project. The remainder of the funding will come from other sources and retail space in the center, Nahm said. Some decisions about the campus center have already been made, Gravina said. One is that the exterior will be brick with limestone trim to "connect the fabric" of the campus architecture. If the committee is able to come to a consensus about what goes into the center this semester, the program should be able to continue on schedule with groundbreaking in 1993. Based on that schedule, the center should be completed in 1995, Gravina said.

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