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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 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.

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