Next time you return to campus, why not saunter up the sweeping grand stairs of the Price Center, past the brand new Triton statue, through the sun-lit atrium to The Loft, a lounge where you can relax with a glass of wine. The what? Yes, students will soon finally have everything they need under one roof—and some of it will stay open 24 hours a day.
Originally designed for 15,000 students, faculty and staff, the Price Center now serves over 27,000 students. The expansion project increases the center’s area by approximately 175,000 sq. ft., primarily in a new four-story building as well as a renovated bookstore with a coffee shop that opened this fall.
The Price Center extension
will have eight new restaurants and 375 additional seats, a ballroom, computer lab, full-service post office, e-mail terminals, study and meeting rooms, lounges, dance
studio and student organization
offices. And to make it easier to get errands done, there will be a bank, grocery store, hair stylist and more ATMs available.
It will also have brand new offices for the Alumni Association and Associated Students, as well as housing the Center for Student Involvement, the Student-Run Recruitment and Retention Center and the Cross-Cultural Center. However, the most anticipated addition is probably
The Loft, an innovative lounge space with an iPod jukebox where students can enter their own music. It will also have a wine and tapas bar with a variety of live performances scheduled four to five nights a week at a student-friendly pay-as-you-go price.
“
It’s providing spaces for students to interact and socialize,” Sharon Van Bruggen, the assistant director of marketing and programs at the University Centers, says. “It’s designed to be open—extroverted—so you could see everything from everywhere.”
So come on down and check it out. It should all be up and humming by the end
of winter quarter. — Neda Oreizy, ’08
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