Student Union to be renovated

By Jason Meholick

Starting this summer, Buffalo State College plans to start a two-year renovation of the Student Union. This renovation will take place over the next two summers and will change the food services available to Buffalo State students.  

Tim Ecklund, associate vice president of campus life, said the building needs to expand to fit the college’s burgeoning population. To accommodate this Buffalo State will reorganize the layout of the Student Union with the focus of building a new and bigger student dining area. The project will cost Buffalo State $3 million, according to Ecklund.

Money received from

-USG

-state government

-federal government

As of early November 2006, the college is having the blueprints drawn out and is having contractors bid on the job. Work will still start this summer and will affect summer school students because the Taco Bell and Underground Café on the north side of the union will be shut down as the school extends the area.

The extra room will come from an old bowling alley behind the Underground Café that no one knows exists. This part of the project will be completed over the summer of 2007 and will have many new food choices for students.

Kendra McCray, general manager of food services, says: “There will be lots of requests for student input as to what foods should be available to them.”

Students will select foods:

      -    though group discussions this spring

  • surveys

  • questionnaires

  • suggestion from students

 

The second step of this construction project, which will take place during the summer of 2008, is to build a permanent residential dining area for students. This will be on the south side of the building. There will be temporary service in the newly rebuilt area until the construction of the new one is finished.

When this project is done there will be all these new restaurants on the north side of the union and a new dining area on the south side.

Ecklund says: “The residential dining area was a temporary fix that became permanent; we think the students deserve a permanent dining area.”

Jason Meholick can be contacted at ChipMcMelo@verizon.net

http://www.buffalostate.edu/insider/index.asp?article=2762&vol=16

http://www.bengaldining.com/locations.html