The Pentagon Dining Hall will not meet its goal of reopening this semester.The building that once housed the Pentagon Dining Hall is currently gutted. Inside, the building is devoid of any walls or internal structure, and trenches reach into the ground below, replacing large sections of the concrete flooring.”We were scheduled to be opened on Aug. 1,” said David Heidke, director for Dining and Concessions. “Obviously we have missed that date, but it looks like we should be finished and opened for spring 2010.”Structural problems discovered during the hall’s first stage of renovation forced dining services to reschedule the hall’s opening.”The old underground utilities had leaks,” said Donnie Jackson, project superintendent. “We are talking about pipes that are 30 years old … so these leaks caused sinks in the ground [below the Dining Hall]. We had to bring in a special engineer, and we had to core-drill below the structure to find all these [sinks], then we had to fill them.”Jackson said seeking out the numerous sinks under the structure and repairing them was the setback renovation. “Pentagon is more than 30 years old, and unfortunately, when we get into buildings of that age, it is possible to run across unexpected events,” Heidke said. “This delay is certainly a surprise … and we are certainly as disappointed as everyone on campus. We are a self-funded unit, and we need that building up and operating as much as anyone does.”The building is having underground utilities installed, Jackson said. Concrete will be poured next week to fill the trenches over the underground utilities. The contractors will install the overhead utilities and by mid-October begin installing the walk-in coolers, dishwashers and [cooking] heads, Jackson said.”Now we have a handle on it,” Jackson said. “Unless Mother Nature or something unforeseen slows us down, I’m going to have it finished and give operators two weeks to train before the start of the spring semester.”The costs of the renovations for the dining hall are currently estimated to be between $5 million and $6 million, Heidke said. The costs for the new dining hall — along with $18.2 million in other University dining renovations — will be paid over a 17-year period by sales generated by campus dining services. “[The renovated Pentagon Dining Hall] will be very, very similar to 459 in terms of the program — the menu and the style of how we present and provide our menu and food options to students,” Heidke said. “It will have a different look with more purple and gold than the 459 Commons, but programmatically with the menus and what we are able to do with the wood-stone ovens, the cooking stations — where the students can cook their own food — will all be the same”The Pentagon Dining Hall will be renamed “The 5,” similar to the 459 Commons. Heidke said the new name is a play on the word “pentagon.”The 5 will also have a retail section similar to “Take-outs” at the 459 Commons called Take 5, which will house a Quiznos. The 5 will also have an outdoor patio area seating 50 to 60 students between the dining hall and West Campus Apartments, Heidke said.”I preferred the 459 Commons to the old Pentagon Dining Hall,” said Brad Baudot, Spanish graduate student. “But I definitely like the self-service of the old Pentagon Dining Hall, because I got to fix the portions that I wanted.”Heidke said the University shifted from the style of dining where students served themselves to a style where workers give students the portions to reduce food waste.”When we opened up the 459 Commons, we were also at the same time operating Pentagon, and we had the opportunity to compare them operationally, Heidke said. “We saw a 30 percent reduction in the pounds of waste going to the dishroom at the 459 Commons than the Pentagon.”This waste occurs because when students have a tray and take as much food as they want initially, they tend to get more than they can eat. Heidke said the dining halls are not attempting to keep students from eating all they want, but only trying to reduce food waste, which is ultimately discarded.————Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]