The Campus Design Review Panel decided to begin to completely rebuild the chancellor’s residence as soon as plans for “The Point” are set. The project is estimated to cost about $3,350,000, which would come from private donors, including alumni.
“It’s going to take probably three to five years to get a new house built by the time the design finishes and they do the construction,” Tim Luckadoo, associate vice chancellor for student affairs, said.
According to Marvin Malecha, dean of the College of Design, the Board of Trustees requested that the chancellor’s residence be moved from Hillsborough Street to Centennial Campus overlooking Lake Raleigh.
“The existing residence is not adequate from the parking point of view,” Malecha said.
According to Malecha, the new residence will be located next to the Dorothy and Roy Park Alumni Center so both can share parking.
Luckadoo said the current residence had a lot of problems.
“The land where the current house is adjoins Pullen Park, and there’s not a whole lot of land for the Chancellor’s house,” he said. “It’s a beautiful old house and has a beautiful front yard, but there’s no backyard.”
According to Luckadoo, the house also doesn’t have a place to have big gatherings in it, which Malecha said is a big concern.
“[The residence] is symbolic to the state,” Malecha said. “It represents the University on a large scale.”
Luckadoo said in one meeting, the committee calculated the cost of renovations to the old residence and the cost of building a new one and it came out to be the same cost.
Malecha said the goal is to have 40 people fit in the chancellor’s residence for a formal dinner, 200 for a reception inside the residence and 250 for a reception that goes outside the residence as well.
Some members raised concerns during the meeting about the type of atmosphere rooms like the “great hall,” where the chancellor would hold receptions, would have in the residence.
“[The hall] is kind of like the alumni center — it’s so big, it loses its charm,” Barbara Doll, water quality specialist, said.
Doll said she worried the room would lose its private feel.
“It just struck me as a nice lobby … but not as someone’s home,” she said.
According to Malecha, the design of the house should include places for the chancellor’s guests, such as the hall and guest rooms, but also private areas for the chancellor and his wife as well.
“There have been cases where visitors … [went] through the chancellor’s drawers in bedrooms,” Malecha said.
He also said the chancellor’s wife was concerned about the location of the residence being in a public site where people may peer through the windows.
The architecture firm, according to Malecha, will make sure the chancellor and his wife have areas that are not open to the public.
“This is a very busy life, and we are trying to accommodate that,” he said.
Doll also raised the issue of the use of sustainable measures in the residence, which Malecha said the committee will continue to look into. He also said the residence should have a lot of space outside, especially since a chancellor may come who likes spending time outdoors.
“We have every intention to make this project as green as possible,” he said.
Other issues the committee discussed included making sure the driveway is not made of gravel because the guests will be wearing expensive shoes and making sure access to the house is easy because, according to Malecha, 18-year-olds are not the ones usually getting invited to the chancellor’s residence, but 50 and 60-year-old donors.
Malecha said the square footage of the private area of the chancellor’s residence is only about 2,500 square feet. He said when putting it rudely, the entire residence serves as “a machine for raising money.”
Although Malecha said the committee hopes to have the residence completed by fall 2008, he said it is an aspiration that mostly depends on donors.
“The residence will be privately funded, so it doesn’t cost the state [any money] at all,” he said.
The construction of the residence will take 14 months, according to Malecha.
