As construction workers put finishing touches on the new Burk Hall annex Monday, staff from the departments moving into the facilities hurried to get their labs and offices ready for the fall semester.
Some moved equipment, some updated their voicemail, and others, like counseling department Professor Roger Cummings, arranged their new offices.
"I think I'm going to have to take some stuff home," Cummings said, laughing, as he looked around the cramped fifth-floor office. "The offices are smaller, but I like the building."
"We like it, except it's not finished yet," said speech pathologist Penny Wayte about the new edition.
As of Monday, the sounds of hammers and saws still blared into the courtyard on the west side of the student center. Inside the annex, some ceiling tiles had yet to be installed and the smell of fresh paint still hung in the air.
Construction of the annex began in May of last year, but the plan was first submitted in 1988, nearly seven years ago, according to campus planner Margaret Miller.
While the total cost of the project is estimated to be $17 million, only 70 percent of that price tag went into construction of the new annex. The other 30 percent will be used to renovate the old section of Burk Hall, which will be closed as of September 1. It will be seismically upgraded and asbestos materials will be removed.
According to Miller the new annex was designed with the old section in mind.
"The building wasn't designed to go with the other new buildings on campus, but with the old part of Burk Hall," she said. The same designers did the old part and the new annex, she said.
Miller added that the old building will get more than just a new coat of paint.
"Some of the space will be entirely reconfigured," she said.
Miller estimated the renovation should be completed by April of 1996.
Because of the renovation, the classes and department offices that the old part of Burk Hall once housed will be moved to the new annex and to the HSS building on the far east side of the campus. The fall schedule should reflect these changes, administrators said.
The departments of counseling, dietetics and consumer and family studies, the College of Education, the learning resource lab, computer labs, and the summer sessions office have all relocated from the old section of Burk Hall to the new annex.
Staff from all the departments were in the building Monday and were pleased with the way the annex turned out.
"The building is really great, it's so spacious and bright," said Patty Joost, secretary to the dean of the College of Education.
"I'm happy to have windows. I didn't have windows in the old building," said Minnie Graham, a communicative disorders lecturer. "I love the newness and the light wood doors," she added.
She did, however, have one critique about the outside of the building. "I would have chosen a different color to paint the trim besides yellow."
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