New dining options are not the only things changing in Norris University Center this year, as a move by the U.S. Bank branch will open up space for new services.
U.S. Bank will soon move across the ground floor of Norris to the space formerly occupied by FedEx, which shut down its NU services Sept. 21, said Brian Peters, assistant vice president for university services. The FedEx space freed up after the University decided to designate Quartet Digital Printing as its main printing service.
U.S. Bank is contracted to assume the new space Dec. 1 but will likely not work out of its new office until the end of the winter, Peters said. The bank will continue its services at its current location until the new space is fully operational.
Moving to the FedEx space from an area of less than 200 square feet next to the stairs will allow the bank to expand its services by constructing offices for serving clients, Peters said.
“It probably more than quadrupled the size of their space,” he said.
As part of NU’s new contract with Quartet, Peters said the printing service will install a printing and copying location in the Donald P. Jacobs Center in the space previously occupied by Xerox, which is also leaving NU at the end of the month.
The new Quartet location, which will primarily manage digital orders, will decrease the time students spend trekking to Quartet’s main location on Clark Street.
“This just makes it more convenient for everybody,” Peters said.
Although no definite plans have been set for U.S. Bank’s current location, other potential additions to the student center are in the works, said Amy White, interim executive director of Norris.
To replace the shipping services previously offered by FedEx, Norris administrators are considering installing kiosks that will provide postal and shipping services on the center’s ground floor, White said.
Installing shipping kiosks in Norris would make sending packages on campus much more convenient, Weinberg junior Brian Lach said. He said the limited options on campus caused him to instead use the UPS Store on Sherman Avenue.
“The only one I knew of was Norris, and I didn’t even go to it,” Lach said. “It would be good to have more options.”
White said Norris would like to expand the availability of postal services to increase convenience and better serve students’ needs.
“One of the things that we see in our assessment is that students are looking for post office-related functions,” White said. “Certainly the post office in Evanston is a good walk from campus and a good walk from the Norris Center.”
Norris officials also approved Thursday the installation of cell phone charging stations in the Starbucks lounge as well as on the ground floor. The stations will probably be installed at the beginning of Winter Quarter in January, White said.
Additionally, White said administrators would like to install a printer on the first floor next to the Dell computer lounge. She said the printer would potentially use the same printing and payment technology used in the library.
Weinberg junior Norah Shi said since she spends more time at Norris than the library, having access to a printer would make her life “much easier.”
White said the changes in Norris are aimed at better serving the student body.
“We’re looking at students’ needs and what students want and doing what we can to accomplish those needs as much as we can,” she said.
