Union committee seeks approval for building plan

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat 1963 The Desert Yearbook Look familiar? The Memorial Student Union in 1963 looks the same as it does today. UA students will have to wait for this image to change. Preliminary renovation drawings of the new Student Union will be ready in six months.

"We can do some guesses but that has nothing to do with reality," said Joel Valdez, senior vice president for business affairs. "I can draw you some pretty pictures but it isn't going to get the job done."

Valdez said before an architect can be chosen, the Student Union Advisory Committee will need approval from University of Arizona President Peter Likins and the Arizona Board of Regents to pursue a nontraditional method of building, which they think will save the university time and money.

Under that plan, a contractor will sort through bids from private firms and choose the best qualified, lowest-priced players in student union design and construction.

"This will save the university from being forced to sit and sort through bids, then seek regents' approval for each choice," said Dan Adams, Student Union director. "That's an unusual approach."

Typically, a university asks for bids to have an architect hired, then bids out again for the construction team and on down the chain of design and construction, Adams said.

"All of that takes a significant amount of time," he said.

Because the contractor would choose the architects also, preliminary drawings must wait until the board of regents and Likins approve the plan to hire a contractor.

Valdez said he will meet with an out-of-state consultant in the next two weeks before seeking approval for the central contractor.

If approved, the second part of the plan calls for all firms working on various aspects of the Student Union design and construction to band together and form a team, Valdez said.

The team will sit together at a single drawing table and produce one plan rather than several from firms working independently.

This saves time and money as several plans won't be devised and then scrapped when another team rejects it as impossible under budgetary constraints, Valdez said.

"You don't go through all the internal bureaucratic hoops," he said.

Adams said that if the board of regents allows the UA to follow the new process, it will keep the Student Union project on the time frame it originally anticipated.

The construction timeline is now off by a year because of last semester's defeat of the Student Union fee referendum, Valdez said.

While the designs are on hold, committees are continuing to evaluate all viable funding options, said Saundra Taylor, vice president for student affairs.

"This is in deference to the students who are saying if we are going to help we want to know what you have done to get outside funding," she said.

Taylor is part of a fund-raising committee that is soliciting alumni, corporations and faculty for donations.

The committee is also conducting a feasibility study which will help predict how much money they can expect to raise.

Once the data is in, the committee will announce its fund-raising target.

Another committee is looking at how much money privatization could bring.

Valdez said allowing more businesses to move into the Student Union may cut construction costs.

"Then we just build the room, it's called gray space, a shell - and they fill it up," he said.

A food court is already planned for the new Student Union.

But privatization cannot pay nearly all the costs, Valdez said.

"They're not going to pay for a lounge for students to sit in," he said.

Adams said he firmly believes the project still needs support from a student fee.

"Ultimately I still think the students and some type of fee will be required - I just don't see how we could do it without the students," he said.

Likins said he wants another referendum once students have more data and building plans to see.

If the students still refuse to support a fee, tuition-backed bonds will be the only alternative, Valdez said.

These bonds are sold to private investors - from banks to individuals who collect interest on them.

The administration had state Legislature and Regent approval to issue up to $25 million in bonds even before the referendum, but refrained in the students' interests, Valdez said.

A fee lasts only as long as the debt remains and then is abolished, he said. Bonds, however, lead to tuition hikes that will remain even once the debt is paid off - the university will just use the extra money for another cause, Valdez said.

"When the building is paid for the fee disappears - the added costs of the student-backed bonds stay forever," he said. "The students will have to pay - either through tuition-backed bonding or a fee."