 "Photo: Photo by Adam Jungwirth")
The new 54,000-square-foot Campus Services Center, located at 650 Witzel Ave., was completed $1.2 million under budget, leaving the University extra money to upgrade a few other aspects of its new acquired property.
The formal ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour afterward was held Tuesday, with UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells, the Oshkosh Foundation Board of Directors, the Division of State Facilities and Chamco, Inc. in attendance.
Joann Rife, project manager for the renovation of the former Cub Foods building into the Campus Services Center, said the main reason for the project coming in under budget was the economic climate.
“It’s just the way the construction industry is right now,” Rife said.
The money left over from the project will be used to upgrade the parking lot and add lighting and fencing around the fleet vehicles.
Wells said he was very pleased with the quality of what the University got for the price it paid.
The Campus Services Center houses Facilities Management, Document Services, Postal Services, Central Stores and the Key Office.
Getting the services building done on time was also key in moving forward with the deconstruction of the old Facilities Management building in preparation for the construction of the new academic building, according to Wells.
“It’s kind of a domino, it was a key to get that building renovated and get all those folks moved in so the company that’s coming in can deconstruct the facilities management building,” Wells said. “It was kind of a linchpin thing to get done.”
Facilities Management Director Steve Arndt said the renovated building offers many advantages to the old spaces the four services previously occupied.
“The benefit of starting with what is essentially a big empty box is you can lay areas out in the most efficient fashion,” Arndt said. “We have a well designed facility.”
Arndt said there isn’t anything new about the interior of the building, but rather a “right-sized space” for operations.
The operation most affected by the move is Postal Services, which was previously located in Dempsey, because the tight space provided in Dempsey didn’t allow them to have Occupational Safety and Health Administration approved aisle distances, according to Warren Potratz, a program services associate.
“When we would meet with vendors, they were always complaining that there should be access around the machines to do service on them,” Potratz said. “So basically we were given the space that the manufacturers recommended around our machines.”
To eliminate a potential problem with Postal Services moving across the river, Document Services, which receives its paper from Postal Services via a fork lift, followed suit to the new services building.
In all, the two services received nearly a 70 percent increase in operations space, according to Potratz.
Central Stores also received a significant gain in space, which Adam Quinn, an assistant for Central Stores, said gives storage the ability to place things on racks above the ground and more room to move around. Also, having the racks above the ground would help in case Oshkosh experiences flooding in the future.
“I definitely think the new space will improve the service we provide,” Quinn said.
Another potential problem that arose from moving the five services across the river was how students and staff would get to the new building.
To eliminate the potential problem, Director of Parking Services Joe Blohm and his department set up a shuttle service for students and staff to get from the campus to the services center.
The main reason for the service, according to Blohm, was to give students who don’t have cars a way to get to their place of employment at the center.
Unlike a normal route system, the service is run on a use-based system in which students or staff who need a ride over to the building call, tell the person who they are and where they need to be picked up, and the shuttle will pick them up and bring them to the center.
The service began Sept. 1 and has already seen a significant amount of use.
“It’s exceeded my expectations,” Blohm said
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