Gonzaga is in the first phase of an ambitious project — a new structure that will not only be the biggest building on campus, but will take over the functions of two of Gonzaga's most beloved buildings — Crosby Student Center and the COG.
David Lindsay, director of student activities and the Crosby Student Center, said that the University Center, as the building is currently known, will contain dining and lounge areas that will be superior to the COG and Crosby.
"Our dining facilities are outdated and broken and don't meet our needs. [We have] meeting room needs, our technology needs are outdated," Lindsay said.
The university recently sent out a survey via email to the student body that represents a first step in making the building a reality. The survey, which asks questions about satisfaction with current campus amenities and preferences for future spaces and services, will help the administration decide what to include in the new building.
Lindsay said that by January the analyzed results of the survey and focus groups will be in.
"I think by this next summer we will be at a much more firm spot of saying ‘Here's exactly what's in the building, and this appears to be what it's going to cost and here's what it's going to take to raise those funds,'" he said. He estimated the building will cost around $50 million and will take two years to construct.
One thing that will be located in the building is space for clubs and organizations that are either student-led or have a high level of student involvement. This includes UMEC and CCASL, whose buildings will be bulldozed along with the COG to make room for the University Center. The section of Desmet Avenue that borders the COG will be dimished, along with the section of Dakota Street behind Welch Hall.
Gonzaga actually does not own everything that they want to demolish – two of the houses on the block of Desmet in question are occupied by private homeowners. Gonzaga will have to work with the residents to buy the land. If that attempt fails, Lindsay said the building's plans will change.
"We'd have to alter the design of the building," he said. "We'd probably make an L-shaped building."
Lindsay said that due to the nebulous nature of the building at this stage in the planning process, he has not contacted the homeowners about their properties.
"It's going to disrupt their lifestyle – we don't want to go to them and say ‘we think we're doing this,'" he said.
The fact that Gonzaga doesn't own all of the land they want to build on is not the only complication in the plans for the University Center.
"One of our big design elements will be disguising the dirty side of the building," Lindsay said. "That's going to be a design challenge for us."
The "dirty side" of the building is the side where trucks containing mail for the post office and food for the dining services will arrive, and where trucks containing the garbage generated by the building will leave. Lindsay estimated that 20 trucks from UPS, FedEx and others arrive at Crosby every day, and that the new building could have as many as 50 trucks per day, coming and going.
Many students will be able to overlook the building's potential aesthetic shortcomings because of what will be housed inside. Lindsay said that right now Cataldo is the only feasible place on campus for clubs to hold an event or the university to host an outside speaker – the University Center will have a more spaces for those activities. One proposed idea is a 1,000 seat auditorium with partitions to shrink the seating or divide it into sections as necessary.
The issue of where students will eat for two years once the COG, the main source of food for most of Gonzaga's underclassmen, is demolished is yet another complication in construction plans. The City of Spokane will likely force the university to provide parking for the new building, according to Lindsay, so the current plan is to kill two birds with one stone – students will eat in a parking garage that Gonzaga will build on the empty lot on Hamilton Street and Desmet Avenue.
The structure, which may cut into the $50 million estimated budget for the project, will house one floor of space that will be rented to retail outlets and three floors of parking. However, during construction of the University Center, the first floor will house a temporary cafeteria, possibly operated with the help of a temporary kitchen that Lindsay said is actually better than what Sodexo is currently cooking food for the COG in.
"These kitchens are better than the kitchen we have now. They're incredible. State of the art," Lindsay said.
After the University Center is complete, Lindsay's plan is to turn Crosby Student Center into a "support center" that will house the Career Center, DREAM, tutoring and other academic support services. Lindsay said he hopes the new student center will become the new place where students socialize.
"We need meeting rooms, we need group study rooms, we need rooms where we can seat 300, rooms with 400, we can do 1,000, we need those things, we need to get food to [the students], we want more recreational space, we want more general hangout space, we want offices for clubs, we want places where we can meet and talk," he said. "Why are we sending them around to all those different places, why can't they be congealed?"
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