The Northwestern administration is raising money to build a new visitor center on Lake Michigan, University President Morton Schapiro said in an interview with The Daily on Wednesday.
The new visitor center, which Schapiro called the “top priority” of his capital campaign, will house information sessions for prospective students and will serve as the gathering place for campus tours. Currently, the Office of Undergraduate Admission holds approximately 100 people on its second floor. The new center is expected to hold about twice that number, Schapiro said.
Schapiro spent the weekend raising money for the building, which he estimated will cost about $10 million or more.
“(The Office of Undergraduate Admission) is so excited about this. It’s going to be a great space,” he said. “It’s going to be right there on the lake, and the tour is going to start right there,” he said.
Ronald Nayler, associate vice president of facilities management, said he hopes to submit the preliminary plans for the building to the Board of Trustees for review and approval in March.
Discussions for the new building are ongoing, but details will not be finalized until plans for the new Bienen School of Music buildingmove forward, said Paul Weller, director of facilities planning.
The visitor center is being built in conjunction with the new $90 million music building. Construction was initially scheduled to begin in winter 2009 on the lakefront but due to a lack of raised funds, the project has not broken ground.
The center will be built on the first floor of a new parking structure, which will replace most of the existing parking garage sitting on Arts Circle Drive, Weller said.
The University is discussing the final estimated cost, as it is still unknown how large the building will be and what kinds of facilities it will include, he said.
“We have some understanding as to what the component parts are, such as presentation space and a reception area and some office space,” he said. “The questions are how large those component parts will be. Those are potentially sizable chunks of space.”
The University will continue to raise money for construction of the visitor center and the Bienen building, Schapiro said.
“It’ll be a chunk of change, but it’ll be well worth it,” he said.
In addition to removing two-thirds of the existing parking structure, building the new visitor center and music building will result in relocating the lake front boathouse to a location further west.
Weller said most of the discussions that have taken place so far have been focused on the parking structure itself. After plans for the garage solidify, the University will seek an architect for the center, he said.
The building is designed to be a cohesive place to gather prospective students. Current campus tours begin in Norris University Center, where space can get tight and the ground floor isn’t very appealing, said Alaynah Boyd, a tour guide and a Weinberg sophomore.
“We specifically take them through Norris, which can look underwhelming,” she said. “With a bigger tour, it can get kind of cramped. It would be really cool if they had an aesthetically pleasing visitor center to show off Northwestern better.”
