The University of Idaho College of Education is about to get a much-needed face-lift.
Kaitlin Moroney | Argonaut
The College of Education building is scheduled to under go renovation beginning at the end of spring semester 2014. The building is located behind Memorial Gym.
Corinne Mantle-Bromley, dean of the College of Education, said the state of disrepair the building is in became apparent soon after she took her position three years ago.
“There has been little to no repair work done on the building because it always takes asbestos abatement,” Mantle-Bromley said. “You can’t get new technology into the building without asbestos abatement — the roof was leaking, the windows were leaking.”
On June 20, the Idaho State Board of Education approved the $14.5 million project for the renovation of UI’s College of Education building.
Because state funds were appropriated for the renovation, the project is overseen by the Division of Public Works, which is currently taking bids from architecture firms to take on the project.
The renovation will include the removal and abatement of asbestos, with which the building was constructed.
The department is currently determining where the temporary facilities for faculty and staff will be located. They don’t have anything set in stone yet, but they will probably be spread across campus, Mantle-Bromley said.
The classrooms in the College of Education building are general classrooms used by the university. Mantle-Bromley said most education students have classes on other parts of campus as it is so the construction will not affect those students.
“There’s enough flexibility in the university schedule to handle these classrooms being offline for a couple of years,” she said.
The move out of the building is expected to take place at the end of the 2014 spring semester. Deconstruction will take one year and reconstruction one more year. The building will not be completely leveled, but only the “bones” of the building will remain, Mantle-Bromley said.
“Everything that is brick, concrete and steel will remain,” she said. “There will be a structure here but it will be pretty empty.”
The college is expected to be ready for the fall 2016 semester.
The official plans are a long way from being drawn up, but the administrators and faculty already have an idea of what they want to see from the new building. Larger classrooms and meeting rooms and science laboratories are among some of the needs the College of Education has currently.
“So we’ll come up with a list of needs and we’ll also have a list of desirables and hopefully we will get as much of that as we can out of the budget,” Mantle-Bromley said.
Mantle-Bromley said she is excited this renovation is finally talking place.
“We are going to create a space that our students really deserve to have,” Mantle-Bromley said. “It will be a space that is going to much better meet everybody’s needs. It’s going to be a space that the university can be proud of.”
Kaitlin Moroney can be reached at [email protected]