Campus Operations and Business Services and the Department of Facilities Services will be renovating the mail services pad over the next year. The renovations will include adding bathrooms, expanding parking, increasing accessibility and improving safety and customer service, according to Associate Vice President for COBS Alex Pang.
“The change will not only make the area easy to find, but [will] also provide convenient parking,” Pang said. “Although a great many of the services provided on ‘the pad’ serve our students, faculty and staff will also benefit while seeking the various services at this location.”
COBS also provides printing services and Corniche travel services. The DFS locksmith is also located on the pad, Operations Associate Director for Planning, Operations and Construction Carly Mischke wrote in an email.
A physical rearrangement of customer service points in COBS will be the most visible and impactful change of the project, Mischke wrote.
The concept of the renovation was approved to proceed into the design phase at the end of February. Strategic planning for the numerous moves and design of the repurposed spaces started in the first week of March.
Physical changes will begin in a matter of weeks, but they won’t be noticeable at first, according to Project Manager for the Department of Design and Construction Shawna Schlageter. The most significant changes will be noticeable late in the coming fall semester, and the work is expected to be completed near the end of the spring semester 2015 if all goes well, she said.
“It’s a complicated set of moves with dozens of moving parts,” Schlageter said. “So it may stretch into summer 2015. Phasing of the moves will be planned to minimize impacts on operations, thereby minimizing impacts on students.”
Freshman Noah Wossen said he thought the school should focus on renovating the Sandbar, the other mail services area. “I don’t get many packages, so I’ve never had to go up [to the pad] that often,” he said. “I heard a lot of people in the beginning of the year complaining about how far away it was, so I would think they would just update the mail room in the Sandbar.”
But convenience is not the main priority in the renovations — safety is the primary concern, because there is a constant in and out flow of delivery trucks and maintenance vehicles in the area, Pang said.
The main safety problem currently is that vendor, delivery and university vehicles enter and exit the yard frequently. In order to improve safety for students, COBS and DFS are designing a safer route to replace the frequently used path across the vehicle entrance, Mischke wrote.
“When the work is complete, we will have a highly visible and welcoming entry point to access all COBS services with convenient parking for customers,” Mischke wrote. DFS will also have a streamlined and more functional work area for their workers.
Sophomore Kami Bates said this would be beneficial. “I know the first time I went up there I didn’t really know where that was or the best way to get there,” Bates said. “So if they are improving accessibility that can only be a good thing.”
No new space will be necessary for the renovations, which is fortunate due to the limited amount of space in that area and on campus, according to Mischke. COBS and DFS collaborated to come up with a plan that repurposes existing spaces instead of creating new ones.
“Interior remodeling for repurposing space is all the work that will be needed to enable efficient functionality,” Mischke wrote.
Customer parking is important, and it is currently inadequate during the busiest times, which are at the beginning and end of each semester, Mischke wrote. So the management of COBS and DFS agreed to designate more parking spaces for customers, ultimately at least doubling what is currently available by the time the project is complete.
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