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St. Cloud State University
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Centennial gains funding
By Eric O'Link
Published:
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
With the acquisition of $10 million in funds, SCSU plans to renovate Centennial Hall. Construction is expected to begin in about a year.
Centennial Hall is about to have new life breathed into it.
The building, which dominates the center of campus, has sat mostly vacant for the past three years. That is about to change, however, now that SCSU has secured funding from the Minnesota Legislature.
In 1998, SCSU developed a master "campus facilities" plan that included the renovation of Centennial Hall following the construction of Miller Center.
"A year ago (the renovation) was included in the bonding bill but was subsequently line-item vetoed by Governor Ventura," said Vice President for Administrative Affairs Steve Ludwig. "This tax session they restored most of those vetoed projects, including Centennial Hall."
Ludwig said $10 million has been appropriated for the project, two-thirds of which was funded by Minnesota taxpayers. SCSU and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) split the cost of the remaining third. The university expects to get the money "any time now," Ludwig said.
SCSU administrators selected an architect for the project last year and began the preliminary design process. Once the funding comes through, the design process can continue. Construction is expected to begin next fall.
A request to the Legislature in the upcoming session will secure the remaining funds to furnish and equip renovated areas.
Classrooms, an auditorium and the Husky Bookstore currently occupy Centennial's first floor. Ethnic Studies, the SCSU Advising Center and the Honors Program office are located on the second floor, which is empty space except for those offices. The building's third and fourth floors, also empty, are closed to the public. Centennial's basement contains several offices and storage rooms.
The renovation will allow several university departments and various academic student services to move into the building. While Ludwig does not know the exact number of departments that will ultimately call Centennial home, he said the university has a general idea after doing a 1998 estimate. The English and philosophy departments are two probable tenants.
The entire College of Business will also transfer into Centennial so that the college's offices and classrooms can all be located in the same building.
Much of the renovation will focus around adding walls in the open space areas on the second, third and fourth floors left over from the old library. Ludwig said the building's cavernous space - 161,939 square feet - is large enough to hold many departments and classrooms.
"It's a pretty big building...nearly as big as Stewart," he said.
Because Centennial Hall is about 35 years old, all mechanical and electrical systems within its walls will be replaced. There will also be some asbestos abatement for materials such as floor tiles.
Ludwig said that Centennial's second floor, where he expects student services offices to reside upon completion of the renovation, would be connected to Atwood Memorial Center and Brown Hall via two skyways.
"We've had a plan for a long time to connect buildings with skyways to several buildings on campus," Ludwig said. "Brown Hall is already connected to Math Science and if we connect Brown to Centennial, that will connect two of the larger instructional spaces because you can get over to Math Science. Atwood, of course, is the center for a lot of activity for students.
"The other plan, in probably the distant future, is to connect the second floor of Atwood to the second floor of Stewart."
The Centennial-Atwood skyway is under construction now as part of the Atwood expansion project. The next skyway to be constructed would probably be the Centennial-Brown Hall skyway.
"The shortest skyways that connect the greatest amount of space are the ones we're constructing now and the other one we've proposed to Brown Hall," Ludwig said. "The others that might be considered for the future are either longer or much more complex."
The final schedule for the Centennial project will be created once the preliminary design process is complete. If construction begins next fall as Ludwig anticipates, the project should be finished in the fall of 2005.
"The building's been a good building and is in pretty good condition," he said.
CENTENNIAL FACTS
Ground was broken for Centennial Hall in 1969. Completed in 1971, it was named "Centennial" because the ground breaking occurred in the university's centennial year.
Centennial has four floors plus a basement for a total of 161,939 square feet.
The building housed the SCSU library until the fall of 2000, when it moved to the Miller Center.
The new Husky Bookstore opened on the first floor of Centennial in fall 2001; the bookstore's trendy look reminded some students of the GAP.
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honestly the gap??? although the way the... (7/25/03)
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