March 23, 1995
Hoa Chung sits at a lone table in an abandoned classroom. Outside, rain gently falls on blossoms and swaying ferns. Monterey Cypress tower over a manicured courtyard. The multi-layered sounds of cars, trucks and buses permeate the air. Students quickly walk by. In the middle, sits a half-empty dilapidated high school-looking building shaped like a large three-storied letter M.
Inside, long empty corridors are lined with paint chipped discolored walls and windows shaded with grime and cobwebs. Overhead, ceilings are checkered with a mosaic of missing or broken tiles. Vacant classrooms, some with little tattered desks, rest next to deserted offices, littered with empty boxes, broken-down furniture and unwanted papers.
Posted on bulletin boards and doors, a sign reads, "This is not the old Humanities building, this is the HSS building."
"I believe they should destroy it and build a new one," says, DeVere Pentony, chair of international relations.
Chung disagrees. She sits quietly studying and waiting for a friend to show up. Desks and chairs are piled up to the ceiling along the back wall of the room.
"They should have other rooms unlocked so students can use them as study rooms," she says. "Because in the library, there isn't enough quiet space."
Chung, and a few other students taking advantage of these unoccupied "study rooms," will have to move out at the end of this semester because the College of Education is moving in.
The College of Education will inhabit the older wing of the Humanities-Social Sciences building, closest to Holloway, for one and a half years while Burk Hall is renovated, said Allen Willard, director of Academic Services at SF State.
The College of Humanities used to reside in the older wing, built in the 1950s. The relatively newer side is still fully occupied by behavioral and social sciences, BSS.
"Structurally, the HSS building is not considered one building," says Steve Jack, director of capital planning. There is a divider in the middle of the structure that separates the old Humanities side from BSS.
After the $17.2 million Burk Hall project is done, which includes the current construction and the renovation set to start this summer, Jack says the university hopes to remodel the old wing of HSS.
A $28 million renovation plan was submitted in last year's capital outlay program, according to Jack. Originally, capital planning asked for the money for the fall of 1996, but Jack says the project will probably be pushed back to the fall of 1997.
The plan is to renovate the old half and close off the courtyards along 19th Avenue, changing the letter M design into side-by-side boxes with small patios in the middle. The patio between the Business Building and HSS will not be affected, Jack says.
It will be less expensive to remodel the old building than to tear it down and build a new one, he says.
The problem is money. Last November, California voters rejected a bond issue for more school renovation and construction. So, the California State University system must depend on revenue bonds, bonds sold by CSU, to finance upcoming projects, Jack says. Unfortunately CSU can only afford to carry about $150 million in bonds each year, he adds. And that money has to be divided up among all the campuses.
Moreover, CSU is earmarking revenue bond money for health and safety issues, Jack says. HSS doesn't fit into that category unless it is considered seismically unsafe.
"I'm not at all sure about how earthquake safe this building is," says Pentony, who has been at SF State for 38 years. "I've been here during an earthquake and the building shakes quite a bit."
Whenever a building is remodeled it has to be seismically upgraded to current code. Only two buildings on campus meet current seismic codes: the new Arts and Industry Building and the new Humanities Building. The addition to Burk Hall, which should be done by this fall if the rains let up, will also meet seismic codes, Jack says.
Meanwhile, 146 rooms in the old wing of HSS will remain uninhabited until Commencement Day, May 27.
"It gets a little spooky around here," says Mary Imandt, a graduate geography student. "Who knows who's living in those dark classrooms."
Pentony agrees, saying the building is pretty much deserted even during the daytime. Safety is an issue, he says, particularly after 10 p.m. "We recommend students go in pairs. And if they can't, they should have UPD (University Police Department) walk them to their cars."
Norman Schneider, professor of urban studies, just moved here from the Science Building and also thinks safety is an issue for students, teachers and staff. He thinks the university should close the old wing until it is back in use again.Schneider agrees with Pentony. "The old wing should be torn down," Schneider says. "The basic structure of the building is problematic. It looks rather depressing over there. The design is so old-fashioned."
However, some students and faculty are not upset that they are occupying an old building while Humanities has a brand new one.
"I like being here," Imandt says. "It's near 19th Avenue and it's near the catering truck."
Speech and communications major Wade Ferguson likes the "lived in" quality of the HSS building. "The new building (Humanities) is so sterile," he says.
Health and Human Services Chair Gail Whitaker, who also just moved into the building, says her offices are "quite adequate," for her needs.
Adequate or not, the slow moving wheels of progress at CSU mean that the 40-year-old structure will remain unchanged for a while. In the best case scenario, if CSU decides to fund the $28 million remodel of the old wing of HSS, the design phase would begin in the fall of 1997, Jack says. Initial construction wouldn't start until fall of 1999, and the very earliest the project would be completed is the year 2001.