12 Comments
So much room for books
At tonight’s SGA meeting, DSpar announced plans for a new library at Barnard. Providing the funding comes in, Lehman Library will be demolished and a new, 11-story library will be put in its place. This comes as a follow-up to her presentation at Rep Council last semester in which she announced that the Board of Trustees was considering various options for the renovation in Lehman: a tall, grande, and venti option, as she affectionately called them. As if we needed another reason to like her.
So, clearly the venti, here. Barnard has been stewing on these plans for a while, trying to decide what to do to create more student space on campus. DSpar did not give many more details at the time—Barnard’s not doing any real planning until funding is secured, and if the funding isn’t secured, then this won’t happen. (Spec has more on why the “tall” and “grande” plans were rejected.)
The conservative cost estimate for the project is currently $150-160 million. The funds will come from a massive capital campaign in the next few years, which has a “mid-nine-figure goal.” They have the rights for a 44-story building, but figure that might be a little excessive, so instead are opting for 11 stories. DSpar also confirmed that renovating Lehman would have been much more expensive than just demolishing and starting from scratch.
An advisor at Barnard has said that everyone who currently has an office in Lehman will have to relocate to a cubicle where the old Barnard pool was. DSpar wouldn’t confirm that, though she did suggest it at her visit to Rep in October, calling the pool “the only swing space we ahve on campus to house virtually all of the functions of Lehman Hall.” She also mentioned that the Barnard pool will eventually be turned into a fitness center.
Books via Shutterstock
Loading …
12 Comments
@Anonymous how about getting rid of mandatory meal plans and actually securing enough housing for students?
@Anonymous Barnard needs to desperately build this building ASAP.
@A guy I doubt any person currently attending Columbia will still be here by the time this is finished…
@if we're entertaining pedantry, SIPA doesn’t own Lehman or the IAB. Strictly speaking, its a university-wide building.
@Strictly speaking, SIPA also cannot experience emotions, as evidenced by its lack of a Facebook page.
@I think SIPA would be pissed if DSpar had Lehman Library demolished. The Barnard one is Wollman Library in the Lehman Building…(…yeah….) #semantics (but, like, also relevant for not demolishing the wrong building.)
@in the words of macklemore that will be “one big ass library”
@Anonymous my history adviser has told me that multiple colleagues of his who like their offices in lehman are going to take this as their cue to retire.
meanwhile, barnard closes the POOL because at probably 1/10th of the cost of building an 11-floor library (over time, even), it was “too expensive” to maintain. And still has mandatory meal plans. And got rid of the part-time tuition thing that allowed awesome people like NYC Ballet principal dancer Teresa Reichlen to graduate from here. And couldn’t partially subsidize pricier off-campus housing for kids who were supposed to have on-campus housing. and downgraded fin. aid for those kids by $11,000. And just raised tuition.
@Van Owen And yet they can’t afford to offer guaranteed housing? Eh, whatever. Means more of them can crash at my place.
@Booo Fuck, I want 44
@the shadow She mentioned that building it above 11 stories = no sunshine on the lawn.
@Anonymous maybe she should fundraise for the 44-story building and use the remaining 33 stories worth of money towards things students never should have lost in the first place (read: housing, pool).