ALICE LAM Jose Garcia moves boxes into Haines Hall. The Chicano Studies Center will move in Monday, and the rest of the building will open Aug. 14.
By Rachel Makabi
Daily Bruin Contributor
Haines Hall will reopen this week after two-and-a-half years of seismic renovations just as the Men’s Gym prepares to close for the same reason.
The anthropology and sociology departments are moving back into Haines after temporarily relocating to Hershey Hall. The Chicano Studies Research Center and the Center for African American Studies, which were in Murphy Hall, are also set to move into Haines.
John Sandbrook, assistant provost for the College of Letters & Science, said that since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, several campus buildings have been seismically remodeled, including Powell Library, Royce and Moore halls and the UCLA Medical Plaza.
“We are still dealing with the after effects of the ‘94 earthquake,” Sandbrook said. “There are other buildings on campus that still need to be renovated.”
The $20 million Haines project, funded primarily by the state according to Sandbrook, also underwent minor remodeling, with the addition of air conditioning and new floors, ceilings and lighting.
CAAS outgoing director Richard Yarborough said the construction took as long as he expected.
“We were kept informed periodically about the deadlines,” Yarborough said. “We have had this date for about a month.”
In the next few years, other buildings will undergo similar seismic restorations, including the Men’s Gym, Kaufman Hall, the Acosta Training Center, the Life Sciences building and Kinsey and Dickson halls.
In September, the Men’s Gym will be the first to begin construction, causing departments and organizations to relocate.
The Reserve Officer Training Corps will move into Wooden North, Student Affairs will move to Kerckhoff Hall and the dance department will move to the Westwood Replacement Village near Lot 32.
Antonio Sandoval, chair of the Campus Retention Commission, said funding for the $23 million renovation of the gym will come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the state, the University of California and the Student Programs, Activities and Resource Complex referendum that raised student fees by $84 per year starting in 2000.
Sandoval said it is necessary for construction to begin.
“There is fallen plaster, cracks in the walls and tiles missing from the ceiling,” he said.
Director of Design Services Marc Fisher said renovations in the gym will be mainly inside and won’t affect the building’s outer appearance. Construction will probably impact Bruin Walk between the Morgan Center and the Wooden Center, he said.
The Men’s Gym inner structural changes will result in more office space for campus groups housed there.
The locker rooms and racquetball courts inside the gym will be converted into meeting rooms for student groups, Sandoval said. And the gym, which will be renamed at a later date, will have room for tutoring, peer counseling sessions, student workshops and computers.