Both Sturges (pictured above) and Fraser Hall will experience extensive renovations, including the addition of student spaces, such as a meditation room. The renovations are expected to begin next academic year (Udeshi Seneviratne/ photo editor).
Sturges and Fraser Hall will be renovated as part of a campus-wide process expected to begin in March 2020, depending on available funding. These renovations are aimed to provide an inclusive and welcoming space for students and faculty while improving safety standards in the buildings.
The main goal of the renovations in Sturges and Fraser is to replace old wiring, plumbing and to remove asbestos from the buildings. Director of Facilities Planning and Construction Michael Neiderbach assures the community that these buildings are safe and simply require annual renovation.
“We’re going to be doing a complete rehabilitation of bating any hazardous materials that might be in the building, like asbestos,” Neiderbach said. “We will also be rewiring all new mechanical systems and plumbing systems, a new configuration for the building.”
Neiderbach emphasized that Fraser Hall will receive multiple add-ons that aim to address student wants and needs.
“In Fraser, we’re going to have space for classrooms, a collaboration shop, study commons, seminar rooms, project rooms, a cafe, a meditation room … and conference rooms,” Neiderbach said. “That’s part of the program of the building.”
Sturges will be renovated first, according to Facilities and Planning services.
“On the ground floor [of Sturges] we’re going to have the communication department and classrooms,” Neiderbach said. “On the first floor there’s going be a health clinic, classrooms, culture commons, AOP and Title IX diversity offices. On the second floor, there’s going to be history, poli-sci and international relations; the auditorium is going to remain but will be renovated, and there will be classrooms. And then on the third floor, we’re going to have tutoring and a testing center.”
Fraser and Blake Hall will be used as a space to hold the excess classes and departments from Sturges, assistant vice president for Facilities and Planning George Stooks said.
“The history department will predominately go into Fraser and until we know our definitive schedule for Sturges,” Stooks said. “We won’t be able to predict the definitive schedule for Fraser. We are scheduling Sturges’s first phase starting for next March, March 2020. If we stay on schedule for that, I predict Sturges will take all of two years for that renovation because it is a full gut renovation.”
Stooks said that “full gut renovations” are renovations in which “the entire building and all the infrastructure is stripped out and renovated.”
“Predominantly, what it’s going to be is renovated for three categories of space: classrooms, student support and academic affairs,” Stooks said. “The Center for Integrated Learning is one predominate occupancy that’s scheduled for there.”
According to an infrastructure upgrade project posted on the Geneseo website in March 2018, the college continues to work with the State University Construction Fund to “evaluate the project and consider design funding options.”
“As we get further down the scheduling and funding path with Sturges, say a year from now, then we’ll be able to better predict where we are with Fraser and/or Milne Library, which we’re also working on some plans for initial phases of renovation for that building.”
There is still debate on the future of Blake when the communication department is moved into Sturges. Neiderbach speculates, however, that the entire building or a portion of the building may be torn down and not be rebuilt.
“The entities that come out of Sturges to go into Blake will go back to Sturges,” Stooks said. “But there’s already entities in Blake that we don’t have a future home for yet. So, they’re going to remain in Blake.”
News editor Emma Boskovski contributed reporting to this article.