Cigarlight Story by Theresa Brown, Nicole Wagner and Ian Weiner
The University of Rhode Island has received $12 million to complete exterior renovations and improve the heating and cooling system at the Fine Arts Center.
The renovations will include new masonry-brick exterior veneer to be installed on the exterior of the theater, the black-box theater and the band classroom. Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) units on top of the band room and the black-box theater will also be replaced.
In addition, the mechanical room in the basement will be fixed to prevent flooding, the handicap ramp will be redone, the windows in the theater building will be cut larger, the top of the parapets will be cut down to meet fire code and all exterior doors will be replaced. By making exterior repairs to the building, the University hopes to address concerns about the recruitment of new students and the safety of current students.
URI submitted a bid for the contractor for the project to the state on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018. Construction will begin mid-March and is estimated to be completed by the end of October. Most of the work will be accomplished during the summer. However, work for the HVAC unit in the theater will occur during class time, but it will not be intrusive to learning.
“The plan is to ensure that we re-skin three of the [building sections], also bidding two additional [sections], and if the bids come in within range we will adjust that,” said Paul Depace, director of Capital Projects for URI.
“[We’re] making the exterior of the building more ‘art-friendly’ or more ‘aesthetic’ and that includes upgrading HVAC systems in three of the different buildings,” said Michael Steinbrecher, the project manager.
The University originally requested funding for renovations beginning in 2011. Necessary improvements to meet fire safety code, heating/cooling/ventilation and building electrical services were made in the last six years. However, funding for a large-scale renovation has failed to make it past the governor’s office and Rhode Island General Assembly.
The 2017 Rhode Island Capital Improvement Budget stated, “The Governor tentatively recommends a $70.2 million general obligation bond referendum be placed on the November 2018 ballot to renovate and construct an addition to the Fine Arts Center. If approved, $15 million would be made available in fiscal year 2020.”
However, the 2018 budget showed no sign of the bond. “It didn’t make it through the state budget,” DePace said. “As you can imagine, something like this has to compete against a number of statewide issues. The one item that is for higher education on the ballot, I think the number is $70 million for a University project at the Bay Campus. I’m guessing that won priority at the Governor’s level and the state legislature level, to make into the budget because that is what’s on [the] ballot and Fine Arts is not.”
Instead of the $70.2 million that Raimondo recommended, the budget later read, “The Governor recommends an appropriation of $1 million from the Rhode Island Capital Plan Fund to address initial project requirements in fiscal year 2018.”
The Office of Campus Planning and Design at URI must submit “requests for proposal” regarding buildings that they believe need renovation. The department is also involved in the processes regarding the design and bid for an architect.
“In 2018, the University received $1 million for additional design and project management services, and in June of this year the state approved $6.4 million in fiscal year 2019 and $4.6 million in fiscal year 2020 in Rhode Island capital funding,” said J. Vern Wyman, oversight of Campus Planning and Design.
DePace is aware that the building is unattractive to prospective students, as well as a hindrance to the learning abilities of current students. However, without a significant amount of funding from the state, he was unable to make any major improvements.
“I know that the need [for renovation] has been for a long time,” Depace said. “If you ask the faculty in the building, probably decades. It just doesn’t create the image that the department would like to create.”
According to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Jeanette Riley, the University is moving forward to find funding for the renovations beyond state funding. “This was always meant to be, primarily, a state-funded project,” Riley said. “Along the way we are looking for funders. Alumni may be interested in supporting this, so we are going to be fundraising for it.”
Riley is confident that the improvements will enhance the learning and appeal to the arts programs at URI. The changes to the building will be planned with suggestions from professors from each department in the building.
“We live in a world that a lot of it is about science and data and I think that advocating for arts and culture is always a struggling challenge that we face,” Riley said. “I think if prospective students come and take the face value of that building, they could be turned away from it… At the end of the day, I think that your faculty are way more important than any building.”
Riley said, the building contains some of the largest theaters, concert halls and set-building shops in New England. As a result, the performances and events held inside attract a large crowd.
“I think that there’s a clear commitment on the part of the University to renovate the building,” Riley said. “There’s a real reason to do it. More than 50,000 people a year move through that building… [The Fine Arts Center] is one of the main venues for the arts [in this] county.”
Despite the condition of the building, enrollment reports from the Office of Institutional Research from 2010 to 2017 show no significant decline in the number of students participating in the theater, art, art history and music programs. However, the deterioration has left many feeling undervalued and neglected.
Persistent problems with the heating and cooling systems, leaky roof and exterior structure have frustrated students.
Some of the classrooms in the art department have gone over a week without heat. In a painting classroom, a professor brought in external heaters to warm the room and allow students to complete their assignments.
“My art professor made us aware that the heat had been broken and that she, along with other art professors, have been doing their best to find help to get it fixed,” said sophomore art minor Malorie Burns. “During class last week, our professor told us that the next class might be canceled due to still having no heat, and to keep an eye on our email. It was seemed to be that it wasn’t fair to be working in an uncomfortable environment. Class was still held with no improvement on the heat.”
Burns was notified by her professor on Monday afternoon that the heater is 22 years old and is only supposed to last 18 years. As a result, the heat is still broken and the University must acquire and install an entirely new machine.
In the music wing, a thin roof on top of one classroom has caused students to become frustrated with exterior noise. It is easy to hear rain and other sounds.
“We have the concert hall and then we have C100,” sophomore music education major Emily Iwuc said. “That room is so bad. I don’t know who built it if it was intended to be used a music room, but every time it rains, it’s just so loud. It’s like there’s one layer of plywood on top of the ceiling.”
In addition, severe fluctuating temperatures in the storage rooms can harm the instruments. They can become warped and mangled and no longer available for use.
“They can’t get their stuff together with the air conditioning and all that,” Iwuc said. “Instruments are supposed to be kept at a certain temperature. There’s a preferred temperature, cooler for playing instruments and often it’s just ridiculously hot and it’s just not a great environment. Fluctuating temperatures can mess up the necks and bend it.”
Furthermore, the condition of the roof near the entrance has led to problems inside the building. Water has dripped down onto the walls, ruining hard work that has been displayed.
“There’s literal brown ooze on the walls that just kind of drips and we don’t know what it is,” said sophomore theater major Alison Castenada. “ It damaged posters from old shows over the courses of years that we’ve done. Those posters are expensive to produce and we put them out there because we’re proud of the work that we’ve done and now we have to take a good chunk of them down because they’ve either gotten damaged or will get damaged.”
Students have also seen nails sticking out of the floor in one studio, causing them to take extra precautions and fix the problem themselves to create a safe learning environment.
“G studio-which is one of the spaces where we have classes and rehearsals-last year, there were some screwheads slightly sticking out and it wasn’t painted,” said Castenada. “Over the summer, our technical director took care of it, but that was his own time, something that he did.”
Students enrolled in the programs wish to see major changes soon- they believe they have suffered enough. While a new engineering complex is being built across the street, and Brookside Apartments are being completed near Meade Stadium, students are frustrated and angry about the lack of funding for the arts programs.
“You drive down the street and you see the older stone buildings and the new engineering and pharmacy buildings, and then you see this concrete pimple on the face of the University, and I can’t understand why they don’t change it,” said junior theater major Josh Raymos. “It looks bad for them, it looks bad for us, and everyone is suffering.”
The University has plans to address the rest of these issues with two more phases of renovations. These will include an interior renovation of the sections that are having exterior work done and demolition of five sections of the building. The five sections that would be demolished will be replaced with a new, bigger building. The University is still trying to acquire money for these phases from the state.