Administration waited too long for Carmichael

As reported in last week’s issue of The Blue Banner, Carmichael Hall needs nearly $27 million in renovations.

The building needing repairs should come as no surprise, but the fact it needs such expensive repairs should be looked at more closely.

The newest building on campus, the Zeis Science & Multimedia Building, cost only $24 million to build, nearly $3 million less than the repair estimate to Carmichael.

Is it even worth spending $26.7 million on repairing a campus building nearly 45 years old?

Why did the university wait until the building was 40 years old to request funds for renovation from the state?

It is not as if the building suddenly began to crumble. Administration officials had to realize that a heavily trafficked, aging building would eventually deteriorate.

It might seem drastic to suggest UNC Asheville skip Carmichael’s repairs and build an entirely new instructional building, but maybe that is something the university should consider.

The economy, while on the rebound, is not doing well enough that the state of North Carolina can justify giving UNCA $26.7 million to fix an old building. It is hard to imagine the state’s economy will be doing well enough at any point in the next few years to justify such an action.

If UNCA decided to build an entirely new building, funding from the state would probably come more easily and the university might even receive private funding like it did from Steve and Frosene Zeis, who gave the university $3 million in April 2005.

Chances are slim that many people will be willing to pony up a couple million dollars to renovate an old building on a campus that is not even that old itself.

It would be one thing if this were UNC Chapel Hill and the renovations were needed for a 200-year-old historic building on campus, but we’re talking about a 45-year-old building on an 50-year-old campus.

Those numbers do not add up to $26.7 million. What they add up to is some poor planning by the university and maybe even some wasteful spending.

UNCA received funding for all of the 44 years since Carmichael Hall was built and yet officials apparently never saw fit to use any of that to fix any issues with the building? Hard to imagine, but that appears to be the case.

The university spent a lot of money over the last few years to do an assortment of different things on campus. A new $42 million health center is being built, a $24 million science building was just completed and dorm rooms have seen renovations,.Highsmith Union now has a computer lounge for commuters and the list continues.

In fact, the university just spent $150,000 to update its Web site. While it didn’t cost $27 million, maybe that $150,000 could have fixed a couple classrooms, ceilings or windows in Carmichael Hall.

Carmichael is a place where students actually, physically go. A Web site is something intangible in cyberspace. That $150,000, though, was certainly less elusive, particularly now that it is gone.

Hopefully the economy will turn around quickly and Carmichael Hall will receive the renovations to be better than ever, but in the more likely case this does not happen, those making the decisions at UNCA need to think of better alternatives to spend the money they do receive.

We can only hope from this point on the university will exercise more foresight and not let Karpen, Owen or Zageir get to the point where they too need millions of dollars of renovations. A little money spent here and there will go a long way toward preventing this from happening again.

http://www.thebluebanner.net/administration-waited-too-long-for-carmichael-1.1173353

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not one of my stronger articles. Credit to Campus Voice Editor Tom McLean, Editor in Chief Sam Hunt and the copy editors for making this one a little bit tighter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've just made an edit to correct a GFE, so this version is ever so slightly different than the linked version.