Departments in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences are preparing to play “musical offices” this week as they get ready to move into new spaces in Crowe Hall, the wing added to Kresge Centennial Hall.

Many departments will be swapping space between offices in Kresge and houses on Sheridan Road to move into Crowe, which will house faculty and department offices but will not have classroom space.

The department of Spanish and Portuguese began moving into Crowe on Wednesday, and in the next few weeks departments including art history, French and Italian, and philosophy will follow suit.

Some offices in the houses lining Sheridan Road also are preparing to move, including the Academic Advising Center and the Fellowship Office, which will vacate the house at 1936 Sheridan Road. The Multicultural Center, which at first planned to move, will stay in that building by itself.

Though some departments are starting to move now, the switching will not be completed until early September, said Marvin Lofquist, Weinberg associate dean for physical environment. He said departments are splitting up and moving at different intervals, which has made the situation “much more disorganized than any of us wanted.”

“In at least half of the cases, it’s not a matter of the whole department moving at one time,” Lofquist said.

Not all departments can move in at once because of space constraints. Lofquist explained that once a department moves into Crowe, other departments will have to wait for the vacant space to be remodeled before moving, and then the space left vacant by that department will have to be worked on before it can be used.

Another change with moving departments into Kresge and Crowe will be altering the numbering system for floors and rooms. Lofquist said instead of having floors labeled ground through third floor, Kresge now will be renumbered first through fourth floor. Rooms also will switch to a four-digit system so there will not be duplicate numbers between buildings.

Though departments are starting to move, there still are final touches to made to Crowe, said Andrew McGonigle, manager of construction projects for the Facilities Management design and construction department. He said the final delivery truck of office furniture came Tuesday morning and workers are finishing the lounge area and installing landscaping and lighting in the courtyard between buildings.

Despite previous setbacks — including weather-related problems earlier in the year — McGonigle said he expects everything in Crowe to be finished by the end of July.

Moving into Kresge and Crowe will give some departments a chance to be closer to campus. Prof. Cristina Traina, chairwoman of the religion department, said the department’s current location at 1940 Sheridan Road puts professors far from other faculty.

“We really look forward to being closer to our colleagues and to the main buzz of student activity,” said Traina, who added that the religion department is scheduled to move to its fourth-floor office in Crowe on July 9.

When the religion department moves out of 1940 Sheridan Road, the Academic Advising Center and the Fellowship Office will move in, leaving 1936 Sheridan Road to the Multicultural Center.

At the end of May officials announced that MCC would be moving in to 1940 Sheridan Road, but Tedd Vanadilok, a graduate assistant with MCC, said the decision changed in June. MCC will stay in the house and expand into the space previously used by the Academic Advising Center and Fellowship Office.

Vanadilok said MCC will have planning sessions in July and August to decide how to best accommodate all of the groups with offices in MCC. The center oversees 38 student groups and two minority student affairs offices.

“Some students that are in the Chicago area can come and we’re inviting other students via e-mail to weigh in on what their needs are and how we can accommodate them,” Vanadilok said.

MCC originally was to take over the house at 1940 Sheridan Road after the religion department left, but Mary Desler, associate vice president for student affairs, said some people questioned the necessity of the move.

“We went to visit the building at 1940 (Sheridan Road) and it didn’t lend itself as nicely to the kind of student interaction that we hope will happen at the Multicultural Center, so we asked that the decision be reconsidered,” Desler said.

Keeping MCC in its current house meant the university did not have to spend money to install another Marlok security system in another building, Desler said. Student groups use keys to access the building. The house at 1936 Sheridan Road also has a good setup to encourage group interaction, said Lupita Temiquel, coordinator of Hispanic/Latino Student Services.

“The large, open community spaces are ideal for the types of programs (student groups) do,” Temiquel said.

Vanadilok said the change in MCC’s plan affords the center “the luxury of not having to move.” For departments without that luxury, including Traina’s, faculty members are just preparing to get settled in a new place.

“Moving is fraught with all of its normal surprises and difficulties and things that don’t work right away,” Traina said. “We’ll just be working on that.”

The Summer Northwestern’s Matt Paolelli contributed to this report