Campus Security delays expansion

By Natasha Dhillon

Expansion. Just say it–"Why is it taking so bloody long to finish this building? Wasn’t it suppose to be finished by September?" Believe it or not, there is a reason that over the past six months expansion has seemed to come to almost a complete standstill.

Campus Security was informed in November 2000 that they had to vacate their location on the first floor of old MacHall by April 2001. The new hall could not be completed until Campus Security vacated the area because the back wall of their old office needed to be knocked out for the hall to be complete. In fact they did not relocate until September 2001.

Have you been by their swanky new location? Did you wonder what happened to the International Student Centre and the Disability Resource Centre? The university determined that the best location for Campus Security was in its new location, which meant that the International Student Centre and the Disability Resource Centre had to be relocated to accommodate them. So the clever people over at the university designed the new Campus Security offices.

While this was happening, no noise from the surrounding construction could intrude on the daily workings of Campus Security, which meant that work on the new hall had to virtually cease (on a 24-hour basis).

Then they realized that for the International Student Centre and the Disability Resource Centre to move, they had to find new locations in MacEwan Student Centre. That’s when the airport lounge and the meeting rooms disappeared from our student building. We gave them our meeting rooms on the condition that the university would provide us with new and equally nice meeting rooms to replace the ones we had lost. Their space was designed and built and they eventually moved in. Remember that still no noise must disturb the work going on in Campus Security.

The Students’ Union was then told that Campus Security would not be able to relocate until the end of September, which threw the entire construction schedule off (with expected completion dates in December 2001 or January 2002). This meant that we would have a brand spanking new hall that had no heat or electricity during the middle of winter. An appeal was made to Dr. Winter, VP Finance and Services, to do something to move Campus Security out of that location.

We should cheer enthusiastically that they managed to relocate by September 1. Work on their new offices was expeditious once it got started. It’s too bad that it didn’t start earlier. I guess we should just be thankful that they did eventually move, even if the move was scheduled for last April.