President John Peters
Jeff Daurer
Ken Zehnder
by Joe King
Bills signed by Gov. Pat Quinn last week included nearly $40 million for badly needed construction and maintenance projects on campus.
Included was money to rehabilitate the Stevens Building ($22 million), funding to tackle deferred maintenance projects ($5.2 million) and planning money for a new “technology building” ($2.8 million). An additional $8 million to remodel and renovate Cole Hall was included as part of a supplement to the capital bill.
The $31 billion capital bill was the first passed by the Illinois legislature and signed by the governor in nearly a decade.
“The last capital bill was passed during the Ryan administration. A lack of resources and a lack of cooperation during Gov. Blagojevich’s time in office precluded the passage of any capital bills,” said Ken Zehnder, associate director of external affairs for NIU. “The transition to Governor Quinn, and ever increasing infrastructure needs, provided the opportunity and effort to get this done.”
Word of the funding arrives not a moment too soon, said NIU President John Peters.
“Our portion of the capital bill will allow us to undertake some desperately needed projects on campus,” Peters said. “The Stevens building is in terrible shape and growing worse by the day, and some of the maintenance issues this will allow us to address are absolutely crucial. We are very grateful to receive this money, and we will do everything we can to expedite this work.”
However, while passage of the capital bill has set off a flurry of activity, it will be some time before crews will be on campus and at work.
Before that can happen, said Jeff Daurer, director of capital budgeting and planning in the Division of Finance and Facilities, engineering and design work must be completed. The Capital Development Board must review plans. Approvals must be secured. Contracts must be let and signed, and a litany of other requirements must be met.
“We are very excited to see this money approved, but there is a lot of work to do before actual construction will begin,” said Daurer, adding that the massive influx of capital projects across the state will keep the Capital Development Board quite busy and possibly slow the process.
Here is a rundown of the projects:
The work at Cole Hall will fall into four major categories.
The funding also includes money to replace the lost lecture hall in Cole, at an as yet-to-be-determined location.
Daurer estimates that work on the Cole Hall project could start in 2010, and should take about a year to complete.
The capital bill includes $22 million to rehabilitate, remodel, modernize and expand the Stevens Building, which is home to the School of Theatre and Dance and the Department of Anthropology. The severity of issues in the 50-year-old, 67,000-square-foot building has placed it at the top of NIU’s capital project request list for more than a decade. With no money forthcoming during that time, the condition of the building continued to deteriorate.
With funding finally approved, the university plans to:
No timeline for the project has been established.
Those upgrades are overdue and much anticipated, said Dean Christopher McCord of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“The anthropology department has been making do with very challenging spaces for some time,” he said. “Their ability to serve their students will be enhanced by spaces that are appropriate to their considerable abilities.”
The School of Theatre and Dance program also eagerly awaits the improvements as the building long ago became inadequate to meet the needs of today’s high-tech theater productions.
“With the current state of the Stevens Building, we often hear from prospective theater students that they absolutely love our faculty and proximity to Chicago, but that the facility is so lacking that they choose to attend a different university,” said Rich Holly, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. “When the renovation is complete, we’ll be much, much better positioned to attract the best and the brightest from across the United States.”
The capital bill signed by the governor also included $5.2 million to address deferred maintenance around campus. The list of such needs is long, Daurer said, but one project has quickly risen to the top over the past few years.
The 60-year-old steam tunnel leading from the East Heating Plant behind Altgeld Hall has dramatically deteriorated because of wear and tear inflicted by vehicle traffic above the tunnel. The structure has cracked, groundwater has infiltrated it and chunks of concrete have begun falling from the ceiling, damaging pipes below.
A failure in that stretch of tunnel would be catastrophic, Daurer said, as it could mean a loss of heat for many buildings on the east side of campus.
“We have been desperately seeking a source of funding to address those problems as quickly as possible, but there was simply no money, so this money arrives at a crucial moment,” Daurer said.
Current estimates place the cost of reconstructing 150 linear feet of the tunnel, and the associated piping, at about $1.7 million.
To decide how to spend the remaining money, Finance and Facilities will evaluate a laundry list of projects that have been waiting for funding. Daurer said likely prospects include replacement of several badly deteriorated roofs and upgrades to the campus electrical system, which is becoming more antiquated and dilapidated by the day.
“We are in the process of re-evaluating all of those projects to determine where the greatest need is and how we can stretch those dollars the furthest,” he said.
The university received $2.8 million to begin the planning process for a new “technology building.”
The first order of business will be to revise the program statement that defines the use and scope of the building. Officials then will hire an architect to work with programs to be housed in the facility to figure out how best to meet their various needs.