University Store moves to makeshift quarters

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

tudents and staff seeking to shop at the University Store early in the semester will find it in four temporary locations until renovations at the store's usual location in the northwest corner of the Lincoln Campus Center can be completed. Housed in the Hatch over the summer, the store moved its stock to the new locations this week.
The Textbook Annex is temporarily housing office and art supplies. The Game Room across from the Hatch contains computers and general books, magazines and greeting cards. Clothing and gifts can be found in the Graduate Lounge Reading Room, and the store will continue to sell some clothing from its traditional spot on the concourse, across from its permanent home.

      Final approval on the new uses for these sites was scheduled to be completed on Wednesday, as the Chronicle went to press, according to Meredith Schmidt, director of Business and Facilities Services in the Campus Center. Schmidt and John Robinson, manager of Capital Projects in Facilities Planning, said the earliest the store could return to its new location is "sometime in October."

     The store's renovation was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of the summer; however, after much of the demolition work was done, the crew discovered substantial quantities of asbestos and the "added complication" of a foam insulation that could release toxic fumes in the event of a fire, Robinson said.

     "While it doesn't burn exactly, it will make a toxic smoke," he said. "That needs to be removed because there's really no effective way to fireproof it."

     Removing asbestos "has slowed the whole thing to a crawl," he said, because of the care needed in the removal process.

     "It was not expected that this extent of work was going to be needed," he said.
Because the University's contract with Follett Higher Education Group, which manages the store, includes $875,000 in renovations by the textbook-sales company, Follett is covering the bulk of the costs of the renovation, according to Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance Paul Page.

     "Physical Plant has been assisting wherever we can, especially with providing other spaces to use temporarily," Robinson said.

     The removal of asbestos was scheduled to begin late this week and is expected to take several weeks, Robinson said. The final phase of the renovation, reconstructing the space, "should actually go pretty quickly," he said.