Construction
at The Beach keeps campus up to date
By Akiko Sugimori
Summer Online Forty-Niner
 Summer
is the best time to re-build facilities
and it is the busiest time for contractors.
Mike Jasminski, university construction
manager of physical planning and facilities
management said, “re-modeling of The Nugget
and the food court starts this Monday. It
is scheduled to be completed August 15.”
The Nugget is a restaurant that serves breakfast,
lunch, and dinner. The menu ranges from
sandwiches, hamburgers to even alcohol.
“The Nugget is the place to hang out for
students and faculties,” said The Nugget
supervisor, Margie Bemkz. “They eat hamburgers,
have beer, and watch TV. I think this is
a very unique idea for universities.”
The Nugget schedules live concerts every
Thursday and Karaoke on Tuesdays. “In evening
time, we usually show local sports games
on the big screen TV. We don’t have cable,
but we will install satellite in fall. The
re-modeling of The Nugget is because we
are trying to make it more fun for students.
They can enjoy, relax, and chill out from
school work in this environment,” Bemkz
said.
The Nugget will be open for the next fall
semester. The regular business hours will
be Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
and Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The construction of a new parking structure
is scheduled for next summer in parking
lot 11. Approximately 2,500 new parking
spaces will be added.
“Parking on this campus always causes an
increase in my frustration. Students compete
for the few left-out parking spots,” said
Tetsuro Miura, sophomore pre-film and electronics
major. “I can’t wait for the new parking
lot. It will help to reduce the number of
students who can’t get to their classes
on time because of parking traffic.”
The new science building, located in front
of University Student Union, will house
fume hood intensive laboratories of the
chemistry and biochemistry departments with
a total expense of approximately $3.8 million.
This project was successfully bid in December
2000, and was originally expected to be
completed in February 2003. Problems with
the contractor postponed the completion
of the project to November or December of
this year.
“About 90 percent of the work is done,”
said Jasminski. “A lot of the finishing
work involves, mechanical depraving, and
electronic systems. We have to make sure
that all systems function correctly.”
One of the largest construction projects
on campus is the Telecommunication Infrastructure
Upgrade Project. The project provides installation
and maintenance of voice and data communication
services, along with many technological
solutions such as call processing, voice
mail and Interactive Voice Response applications.
All construction will be completed by February
2004.
The library addition and renovation project
will have an automated book retrieval and
storage facility. Renovating the existing
west and east wings of the main library
will cost $18.6 million. The facility
will address some of the deficit in library
space on campus and store some of the library
collections in a centralized location, freeing
up the west wing for new collections. Expansion
of study space that has shrunk over years
will make room for computer workstations.
In the east wing, there will be small and
large group study spaces, mediated classrooms
and offices.
Additionally, the project will address the
needs of specialized library collections
for music by expanding the present satellite
music library in the northern part of campus.
Future costs of $450,000 will be necessary
to fund equipment.
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