Residential, student-services staff set to move into new digs

Construction workers put finishing touches on the new four-story dining and office complex on the corner of Channing Way and Bowditch Street, two blocks south of campus. Noah Berger photo

15 January 2003 | Staff in the Residential and Student Service and Early Childhood Education programs are preparing to move into their new home - a four-story dining and office complex on the corner of Channing Way and Bowditch Street, two blocks south of campus.

Approximately 170 employees will be relocated, floor by floor, beginning on Feb. 8 and continuing through early March, says Harry Le Grande, assistant vice chancellor for Residential and Student Service Programs. On the first floor, Crossroads, the new student dining room, and The Den, a late-night café, are already open for business.

The new Residential and Student Services Building, nearly two years in the making, provides students with a spacious, modernized center for dining, as well as the convenience of consolidated business services on the southside of campus.

The dining facility opens onto a corner entry plaza, while the office entrance is located at 2610 Channing Way.

Le Grande says the state-of-the-art dining commons and administrative office building brings together a group of housing services and administrative functions that, for years, were located in ten to 12 different central-campus and southside locations.

The $31-million facility was funded by auxiliary income from Residential and Student Service Programs (RSSP). It was built to withstand a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault, says Chris Harvey, Capital Projects director for RSSP. The building replaces the old dining facilities at Units I and II - built between 1959 and 1962, they were rated seismically poor - and the temporary trailers that served as office space for more than 30 years.

To complete the project, landscapers will be planting trees and shrubs around the front plaza and entrances in the spring. That work is expected to continue through the end of April.

For additional information about the building - as well as packing, moving, and back-in-business dates for specific administrative units - visit www.housing.berkeley.edu/legrande/rssb.html.