Faculty Club will relocate to Inn at Penn

In addition to bringing upscale retail and dining to Penn's northern edge, Sansom Common will reshuffle some buildings in the heart of campus. The Faculty Club, which has occupied its spot at 36th and Walnut streets since 1959, will relocate into Sansom Common's Inn at Penn, set to open in fall 1999 under the likely management of Doubletree Hotel Corp. The move will turn over management of the Faculty Club's operations to Doubletree, outsourcing the jobs of approximately 30 workers. But Executive Vice President John Fry said the arrangement will offer "plenty of opportunities for those people." The Faculty Club Board of Governors agreed last summer to plans calling for consolidating the Faculty Club and the Inn at Penn into a single location served by the same employees, Business Services Director Steve Murray said. The relocation will save the University approximately $650,000 per year, a combination of operating costs and the Club's deficits, Murray said. In addition, the move will open up prime space in the center of campus. Plans for what will move into the current Faculty Club building after the relocation remain vague, however. The building will likely be used for academic purposes, Fry said, adding that a study will begin in the next few weeks to identify the best possible uses of the facility. He would not specify the departments to be considered. The future of student-oriented functions -- such as Hillel's kosher dining plan and the Student Council on Undergraduate Education Lounge at the Hourglass Grille Room -- that currently operate out of the Faculty Club is also up in the air. The University has provided the Club with rent-free space since 1959. Although this arrangement lasts until 2009, Board of Directors President Elsa Ramsden emphasized that the timing is right to make the move now. "There's no reason why the University would continue to pay for our deficit past 2009," she said. "Now is when we have the opportunity to move. I'm a little concerned about the size of the space, but happy that we're making plans for our future." While the current Faculty Club building contains about 32,000 square feet of space, the Inn at Penn will provide only about 5,500 square feet. Murray said, however, that conference rooms at the Penn Inn will be available when additional space is needed. But the relocation angers some faculty members, who said they feel the new facility will prevent the Faculty Club from performing its functions. "I disagree completely with the proposal," City and Regional Planning Professor Anthony Tomazinis said. "Right now, we have an entire building for the Faculty Club. In a few years, we will just have a rented room. "I'm appalled at how quickly and easily the board agreed to the demise of the club," he said. Faculty Senate Chairperson Vivian Seltzer said members of the Senate had no formal information about the plans to move the Faculty Club until the administration's announcement at an October 8 Senate Executive Committee meeting.

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