Wednesday, April 29, 1998
Construction projects made concrete
ADMINISTRATION: Team from Capital Programs meets needs of
campus
By Lawrence Ferchaw
Daily Bruin Contributor
After a period of decline in campus building from the late 1960s
to the 1980s, UCLA is currently in a building cycle, spending $1.25
billion since 1985.
As the campus population continues to grow and as the faculty
continues to ask for better facilities, construction might be
ever-present.
By 2005, about half of the buildings which existed in the
mid-1980s will have undergone some construction and campus building
space will have increased by a third.
This often comes with the cost of lost green space on a campus
which is already the most crowded of the UCs.
Upcoming projects include seismic renovations of buildings and
the construction of a new medical complex.
"The amount of construction going on in the next 10 years is
going to be phenomenal," said John Dracup, chair of the faculty
advisory committee and professor of civil and environmental
engineering,.
In the long process to build or renovate buildings on campus,
Capital Programs is involved from the beginning, when the project
is just an idea.
"Everything we do is the outcome of some fairly long-term plan
of various operating entities on campus," said Duke Oakley,
assistant vice chancellor in charge of design and construction, one
of the components of Capital Programs.
These ideas most often come from academic departments, like the
School of Medicine, or auxiliary groups on campus, like
housing.
The department first presents their need to improve the quality
of their programs for the faculty and students.
"Quality of life is the premiere issue," said Dracup, noting a
number of faculty members who have left the university in recent
years because of better facilities elsewhere.
If the executive committee, which is composed of the chancellor
and the vice chancellors, agrees that there is a need, the group
can then go to Capital Programs for help.
Staffers at Capital Programs work with that campus group to turn
their need into a more concrete plan to submit again to the
chancellor. Services include early designs and estimates of
cost.
"The fact that we work with them doesn’t mean we approve,"
Oakley said.
In fact, Oakley pointed out that there are many opportunities
for a program to vetoed, rather than yielding to a time when a
project is given ultimate approval.
If these early plans are approved by the executive committee,
funding is the next big question.
The group can be directed to the Campaign UCLA board to
determine the fund-raising abilities for the project. Other
alternatives for funding include grants, or in the case of housing,
bonds and housing revenues.
As of 1995, private gifts made up 10 percent of the budget for
capital improvements. State funding, which makes up approximately
25 percent of the construction budget, has been set aside for the
seismic renovations of campus buildings.
While funding is necessary for a project, it does not dictate
that a project be done.
"Money is not sufficient reason for a capital improvement to be
done," said Oakley, emphasizing that there must be a demonstrated
need for the project beyond the availability of funds.
If a project gets approval from the chancellor – and the OK of
the Regents and the UC president if the project costs over $5
million – and receives the necessary funding, Capital Programs
works to make the designs final, hire contractors, supervise the
construction and minimize the inconvenience to the campus
population.
The contract services department puts out the contract for
public bidding. The company with the lowest bid is awarded the
contract.
Capital Programs oversees the construction projects, acting as
the building inspection department for campus projects – which have
more rigorous building standards than buildings in the rest of the
city.
Oakley pointed out that this process has led to buildings that
performed better during the 1994 Northridge earthquake than
buildings throughout the city.
"We’re not perfect, but statistically we do better," he
said.
While Capital Programs inspects and supervises the construction
process, it is also advised and supervised by others.
The first line of oversight is the department which is working
with Capital Programs. There is also the newly formed Capital
Programs Advisory Council, created by the chancellor. A faculty
committee also advises the department to represent the faculty
interests. The committee is concerned with improving the quality of
life at UCLA.
This trade-off is made especially hard when the amount of space
available on campus, approximately 430 square feet per student, is
less than the amount at universities which UCLA likes to compare
itself to.
One of Dracup’s areas of interest is the preservation of green
space on campus while, at the same time, improving and adding
buildings to the campus.
"We should have premiere classrooms, living facilities and labs,
but at the same time we have to have openness," Dracup said.
It’s going to be a hard balance to strike, when six huge new
projects are slated to be completed between now and December 2000.
Including repairs on Royce Hall, Haines Hall, expansion of Parking
Structure 4 and the Morgan Center, the projects will total $235.6
million.