Cal Poly’s $33 million budget deficit has forced some of the planned construction projects on campus to be delayed. The building of a $124 million addition to the Science “Spider” Building and the plan to turn South Perimeter Road into a walking plaza in the fall will be the first to be delayed. There are also no plans for new academic buildings on campus.
“The picture for capital projects is fairly bleak for the next year and a half,” Bob Kitamura, Executive Director of Facility planning and capital projects, said.
The addition to the Science Building has been delayed Philip Bailey, Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics said, but he is hopeful that the funds will come for the Science Building. The state budget has passed, so lease revenue bonds should soon be approved for sale in order to pay for the building, he said.
The building will provide more space for student research and classes. The improvement is part of a plan to increase enrollment in the polytechnic aspects of the university, Bailey added.
South Perimeter Road will be closed permanently to regular vehicle traffic as planned starting in September but improvements will not be made to it, Kitamura said. The road will still be used to access the construction going on at the Recreation Center, the University Union Plaza and the Simpson Strong Tie Building, a new Materials Demonstration Laboratory for the College of Architecture and Environmental Design with a budget of just under $3 million.
Construction was supposed to start on the Simpson Strong Tie Building building in July but was delayed due to a new law that requires greater access to the disabled. Construction is now expected to start in mid-September, said Kitamura.
The closure of South Perimeter Road is also part of the campus master plan to make Cal Poly more pedestrian friendly.
The bus stop on South Perimeter will be moved to North Perimeter next to the library.
While many construction projects on campus have been stopped, work on the Recreation Center and the University Union Plaza will continue as planned. Both projects use funds that cannot be reallocated to other projects.
The gym renovation is being paid for by a student fee increase approved in a 2008 student referendum. The fee increase will not be added until construction is completed, which the Associates Students Incorporated (ASI) Web site projects to be in 2012. The referendum approved a $71 million bond to be taken out in order to pay for the costs.
The funds for the University Union Plaza remodel are coming from the ASI union reserve fund that can only be used for facilities, said Carl Payne, chair of the University Union Advisory Board. He added that the union reserve fund created by referendum by Cal Poly students in the 1970s established a student fee to create and maintain a variety of construction projects.
Construction on the University Union Plaza is “so far so good,” Payne said. The $3.1 million project started in the summer quarter and is expected to be completed in the spring of 2010.
ASI has been planning on redesigning the University Union since a 2004 survey in which students identified that renovation to the plaza was important to them.
Despite the survey students failed to approve a fee increase that would pay for it, even after a $40,000 “Yes” campaign that ASI launched and was heavily criticized for.
Payne said ASI learned a lot from the 2005 referendum, “We were trying to do too much at one time,” he said. Since the 2005 referendum, students have approved a fee increase for the gym and ASI has put enough aside enough money from the reserve to pay for the plaza.
Biology senior Victoria Valencia said she would not have spent the money on the Recreation Center or the University Union Plaza but would like to see more academic buildings on campus.
Campus Dining Director Tom Welton, said people are still finding their way around the construction “like mice in a maze.” He added that he does expect a drop in sales starting in the fall but said the remodel should be good for Campus Dining in the long run.
Progress on the both the University Union Plaza and the Recreation Center can be followed on the ASI Facilities Project Blog.
ASI will also begin working on five new outdoor basketball courts this summer that will be put in next to the newly completed turf fields right off of Slack Street, said Michelle Broom of ASI.