Thursday, April 30, 1998
Student meeting areas to move
ASUCLA: Offices will move; 1,167 square feet of lounge space
will be lost
By Michael Weiner
Daily Bruin Contributor
ASUCLA wants to better meet students’ meeting room needs.
The ASUCLA board of directors will change the layout of Ackerman
Union and Kerckhoff Hall by switching the spaces occupied by some
meeting rooms and offices.
At its meeting on April 24, the board approved the substance of
the plan, but deferred approval of the $275,000 expenditure until
ASUCLA works out next year’s budget in May.
Board members must now decide whether the plan, which would
result in a net gain of 256 square feet of meeting room space, but
a net loss of 1,767 square feet of lounge space, is worth the
cost.
There have been complaints from some students that ASUCLA does
not provide enough meeting space for student activities.
Jim Friedman, a graduate student representative on the board,
said that although he likes the plan, he has not yet decided if its
implementation is worth the cost.
"I know that there are new costs, and that has to be looked at,"
said Friedman. "From what I’ve seen, it looks like a reasonable
plan."
The plan has two main objectives. One is to make meeting space
in Ackerman Union more usable by moving the rooms from the third
floor to the A-level.
"It’s better space in a higher traffic location," said ASUCLA
Executive Director Patricia Eastman.
ASUCLA Facilities Director Mike Otavka agrees.
"There are a lot of different activities on A-level," he said.
"The meeting rooms would add a critical activity to the A-level
that would bring it more life."
"If you look at the third floor of Ackerman, it’s pretty far
removed from the activities in the building," he continued.
The third floor will now be used primarily for office space,
according to Otavka. The lounge on the third floor of Ackerman will
also be converted into office space. It will not be replaced with
another lounge.
The other objective is to move ASUCLA administrative offices
which are currently off campus or not in Ackerman or Kerckhoff back
to a central location. Eastman also said that maintaining office
space on campus is more cost-effective.
"The cost of renting space off-site goes away," she said.
Otavka said that without the facilities plan, ASUCLA offices
would be spread out in available space on and off campus.
"At one point, we thought that a lot of the administrative staff
would have to remain off campus," Otavka said.
If its funding is approved, the implementation of the facilities
plan will be divided into three phases, all of which are scheduled
to take place in fiscal year 1998-1999.
The first phase converts current ASUCLA offices on the A-level
of Ackerman Union into meeting space for students. Projected costs
for phase one are $100,000 for construction and $5,000 for
moving.
The second phase converts parts of the second floor of Kerckhoff
Hall near the corridor leading to Ackerman into office space, which
will be used to house student government and other Kerckhoff
residents when the upper floors of the building are under
construction for seismic renovation over the next two years.
Phase two is expected to cost $100,000 in construction fees.
According to Eastman, the costs for phase two have been in the
association’s budget for two years and are separate from the rest
of the facilities plan.
The third phase would convert the lounge and meeting rooms on
the third floor of Ackerman Union into office space. Construction
for phase three is estimated to cost $50,000 and moving fees are
estimated to cost $10,000.
Besides the costs of each of the three phases, an additional
$10,000 is estimated to cover miscellaneous moving costs.
Otavka hopes that the plan will help ease the demand for meeting
room space.
"There is a high demand for meeting rooms, and we don’t have
enough meeting rooms for the demand," he said.