The Campus Center renovation is a top priority for BC leadership but is still a few years off. The initial planning meetings will take place this fall, although no date has been set yet.
SGA President Micah Card had stated last semester that the Campus Center renovation had been her top priority for her time in office, and had planned on using the SB 135 money to do so. SB 135 was a California state senate bill that had made taken $1 from each unit each student purchased, to a limit of 5 units per student, and set it aside specifically for campus center renovations.
However, BC President William Andrews said that money, which ranges in the hundreds of thousands, would be inadequate for the improvements the center needs. “You’re talking about $4-$5 million with a facility like that,” he said.
He plans on using the money from Measure G, which was passed shortly after Andrews came to BC, to renovate the center.
“The challenge now is, what is it going to take to relocate all the services housed in that area?” Andrews said.
The SGA, supportive services, the Renegade Rip, the cafeteria, student lounge, and several conference rooms are located there.
Andrews says that relocate-able buildings are the most likely solution. He remains perplexed with what will become of the cafeteria. “I have yet to see a relocate-able that can handle 400 people, plus the kitchen.”
This is still a long way off, though. First, Andrews said he must get “a whole bunch of people together, figure out what we want to do, and put out request for proposals.”
This group of people will be the planning committee, which Card says she plans to get “as many students as possible on” as her new goal.
The request for proposals, or RFPs, are memos sent out to architects asking for a rough idea of what each would envision and design for the center.
The committee will take in 9-12 proposals, and narrow the list down to 2-3 proposals. The architects chosen would then do more intricate personal proposals. Once the committee selects and recommends an architect, they must send the recommendation to Andrews for final approval. “This is because committees cannot be held accountable for mistakes, presidents can. It is to create accountability.”
The architect will come back after that and explain the campus center to the committee, and explain “what is possible and what is not,” said Andrews.
From there, the architect will develop specific plans and modify them systematically according to the wishes of the committee. Once all committee members sign off on a final, the architect will do a tight, specific final. The school will then send out bid documents, and the final contractors for the process will be selected by an expert panel.
After this entire process, the campus center will finally begin to be renovated, sometime in 2008. Before that, the President must still figure out what to do with all the services in the Campus Center, and the SGA must decide what to do with all of its SB 135 money.
“My encouragement to Micah [Card], and the next Micah, and the next Micah, is to save the money, save it to help with the renovation.”