UCCS administration recently announced the latest in a long line of initiatives to save campus from a fate worse than that of The Citadel mall. Their plan to pull campus back from the brink in light of the budget crisis? Just level the whole thing.
Earlier this month, construction teams broke ground on a project to tear down Gateway Garage and the Lodge and replace them with a $70 million dining facility. The state-of-the-art building would boast a very large empty space, some pretty cool lights that would never be turned on and high-tech ID scanners at doors that will remain permanently locked.
While not functional, administrators were hopeful that the building would serve as an effective attraction for prospective students. The three they are trying to win over have so far been “unimpressed.”
After the Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) failed to scrounge enough quarters from under the vending machines to fund the project, rebuilding efforts on the site were indefinitely postponed.
In an emergency BAC meeting held on Friday, it was announced that UCCS would pivot to an alternative strategy to save money on utilities and maintenance costs.
“We opened the university wallet, and it pretty much coughed up dust,” said Chancellor Sennifer Jobanet. “We don’t have enough money to rebuild, so we figure it might just be best to knock all of the buildings down.”
Jobanet said that the project to demolish campus would open up new green spaces in line with the first pillar of her strategic plan: sustainability and strategic growth. “We are going to strategically grow weeds in the rubble of El Pomar,” she said.
Crews have already begun demolishing Columbine and are set to move on to Centennial Hall next. Students in Columbine told the Scribe that they didn’t really notice that half of it had been demoed, and that they thought it had just looked like that the whole time.
Scribble Editor’s Note: This article was written before administration removed the vines on Main Hall and the mural from the Office of Admissions, though the Scribble team expects more features of campus to begin disappearing soon. Expect a totally blank mountainside in three months.
UCCS levels their entire campus. Graphic by Josiah Dolan.