The Alumni Center will undergo a renovation project on the basement, first and second floors to improve public entry and circulation.
The Board of Regents approved a schematic design for the work Thursday.
The renovation also will increase staff workspace to accommodate staff relocated from off-site leased space. A small, 350-gross-square-foot addition on the west side of the building will create a new entrance.
Alumni Association gifts and resources will fund the $8.9 million project, which was designed by Integrated Design Solutions.
The project will include architectural, electrical and mechanical work and will provide an average of 12 on-site construction jobs. Construction is scheduled to be completed in fall 2020.
Constructed in 1982, the approximately 34,000-gross-square foot center was designed by architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen and is considered an iconic building on the Ann Arbor campus.
The Board of Regents also authorized issuing bids and awarding construction contracts for the project.
Noah Weaverdyck
In 2015, the President’s Committee on Greenhouse Gas Reductions urged the University to implement better building standards in order to help combat the climate crisis:
“we recommend that the University adopt ASHRAE 90.1-2007 +50% as its energy standard and consider even more aggressive approaches, such as ASHRAE 90.1-2013, or the American Institute of Architects AIA 2030 Commitment, which also focuses directly on energy and GHG reduction. Both of these alternatives have lower upfront administrative and certification costs (which can be substantial in the case of LEED.” [http://sustainability.umich.edu/media/files/Greenhouse%20Gas%20Reduction%20Committee%20Report%202015%20(1).pdf]
Yet four *years* later, even such a simple recommendation has yet to be implemented, let alone recommendations for on-site generation. How many millions have been spent on how many buildings since then? So many wasted opportunities, and ones we can’t afford, given the rapid reduction in emissions necessary to curb catastrophic climate change [https://www.michigandaily.com/section/viewpoints/op-ed-time-lead-climate].