Construction of the $18 million Student Resource Building, which will be located along Ocean Road next to Snidecor Hall, is scheduled to begin in January or February of 2005.

Final bids for the project’s construction are due Nov. 3, said Gary Banks, the project’s manager. Dean of Students Yonie Harris, co-chair of the Student Resource Building Committee, said the 68,413 square foot, three-story resource center will provide new offices and meeting rooms for numerous campus departments and organizations, including the Women’s Center, the Office of Student Life and Campus Learning Assistance Services. The building will also include a child daycare center, a large forum room where students can study or lounge, a multi-purpose room and a kitchen for potlucks and food sales.

Banks said he would not know whom the contractor for the project will be until the day of the deadline because construction bids are usually submitted at the last minute.

“People are sitting in cars on cell phones right before the bids come in [at 2:30 p.m.],” Banks said. “They cut it really close.”

Once begun, Banks said construction should take a year and a half to two years to complete.

Funding for the resource center comes from a student initiative approved in the spring of 2001. Since Fall Quarter, each student has paid $33.33 a quarter and will pay $21.49 during summer sessions for the construction of the building. Harris said the willingness of the students to get funds for the project shows how eager students are to have such a facility.

“Students voted to tax themselves,” she said.

University Rep. Ray Aronson said buildings adjacent to the project would hardly be disturbed by the construction. The service road on the west side of the Thunderdome, however, will be blocked. Aronson also said the bike path between the Thunderdome and the new structure will also be affected.

“The bike path will not be closed, just relocated,” he said.

Harris said the new building would bring together many different kinds of services and student-dedicated spaces.

“We hope it’s a destination for lots of students,” Harris said. “It’s their building. We really want students to just come in and hang out.”

Yolanda Garcia, executive director of Student Academic Support Services and the other co-chair of the building committee, said the resource center is a great way to bring students and faculty together in addition to people of different ages and race.

“It will be multigenerational, multicultural and multifunctional,” Garcia said. “It’s going to bring us to a different level of connection.”