Students should expect more construction obstacles in Fall 2008 with plans to redesign the David Eccles School of Business -- a multimillion-dollar project for which the U is requesting funding from the Utah State Legislature.
"We are asking the legislature for $28.5 million to help with the $107.5 million project," said Raelynn Potts, director of business affairs. Almost all of the remaining $79 million has been raised from private donors.
"This is the university's highest priority for the legislature," said David Pershing, senior vice president for academic affairs. "It's a very important project to the campus, because it will bring state-of-the-art technology to classrooms for student use."
Funding requests go before a legislative committee sometime in January, said Kim Wirthlin, vice president for government relations.
"We want them to make this one of their top-3 projects to focus on," she said.
Wirthlin said the project was listed as the top priority for the Board of Regents.
Rep. Paul Neuenschwander, R-Davis, and a U graduate with a master's degree in business administration, said that the School of Business is certainly important, but there are also a lot of other key projects the legislature must consider.
"I know how the business school helps the state, but there are a lot of other requests for funding," he said.
The School of Business has almost raised the other $79 million during the past three years. With the remodelling, the U gains multimedia classrooms that are fully wired for computers and have wireless Internet, said Jack Brittain, dean of the School of Business.
The legislature recently approved the school's plan to begin designing the business school remodel, without funding approval. The U is waiting to hear whether the legislature will approve the $28.5 million request.
"The legislature is letting us proceed to the design phase," Potts said. "We're now in the process of selecting the architect and contractor."
If construction begins, the School of Business would be surrounded by fences and covered with construction workers as the Francis Armstrong Madsen Building is torn down in the first part of a three-phase project. The Kendall D. Garff Building would be torn down in the second phase to be replaced with new, technologically-improved buildings with more classroom and office space.
Plans to renovate the School of Business have been in the works for the past 10 years. Three of the four business buildings were built in the mid-1960s and need to be updated, said Lindsay Allen, marketing analyst for the School of Business.
"The Christiansen Center was built in 2000, but the other three need to be updated," she said.
In the '60s, the business school had approximately 600 students. Now, there are more than 3,000 students. The school doesn't have room for teachers' offices, and the U needs more classrooms, Allen said.
Last year, a focus group was hired to find out what students want out of the new buildings. Most students said they wanted better places to study, wireless access and places where groups can get together to work on projects, Potts said.
"Over 90 percent of the space will be dedicated for student use," she said.
The older buildings also have routine maintenance issues, which Allen said is normal when the buildings are older than 40 years.
The School of Business will take down two buildings with 56,000 square feet total to replace it with 188,000 square feet.
"We don't know if it'll be one or two buildings, or a lot of smaller buildings," Potts said. "We just know how many square feet it will involve."
The first two years of the project will involve tearing down the FAMB and putting up replacement buildings with classroom space. The Kendall D. Garff Building will be torn down after replacement buildings are ready for use.
"We can't tear both buildings down at the same time, because we need places to put students while the new buildings are being worked on," Potts said. "Classes that would've been held in FAMB will be distributed in other classrooms on campus."
The outdoor plaza between the business buildings will be blocked off in parts. Routes to class will have to change when construction begins, she said.
Business representatives said there are future plans for a third phase in the construction to tear down the Business Classroom Building and replace it, but additional funding will have to be raised.
l.groves@chronicle.utah.edu
