By: Roy Aker

With the $2.5 million renovation project to Coffman Union’s second floor starting next week, many student groups said they’re excited for the changes, but some still have concerns.

Historically, the second floor of Coffman has housed office space for more than 30 student groups, but under the new floor plan, only 12 groups have been allocated offices — with hundreds of other registered groups set to share two multi-use rooms.

Rebecca Huebsch, former Biologists Without Borders president said the main loss for the group will be storage space, which the group uses to stockpile boxes of international donations each semester.

Huebsch said she’s curious to see how much storage space will be available now that the group doesn’t have a dedicated office.

Eight large and 36 small storage lockers are planned in the center multi-use space, said Student Unions and Activities Director Maggie Towle.

The lockers will be available to rent for day use with some set aside for semester-long periods.

Meeting space within the multi-use areas will be reserved in a similar process with students allotting group time by online reservation.

Towle said the multi-use spaces, which are new to the floor, were designed so more groups would be able to meet in Coffman.

Three key points the renovation centers on is having the space be more flexible, accessible and visible, part of which involves making it easier for groups to recruit new members.

 “As we’ve had these conversations over the last few years, the student groups got excited about how much more successful their groups will be by having this nice open collaborative space,” she said.

The renovation plan, which Towle said was completely student-run, was headed by the SUA Board of Governors, the Second Floor Advisory Committee and a committee that represented groups without dedicated office space.   

Architectural and interior design firm Studio Hive sat down with committee members to discuss specific changes to the floor plan.

Bringing in natural lighting and opening up the space was a main objective of the renovation with removable floor-to-ceiling glass walls as a main fixture of the design. 

According to Towle, the walls will make it possible to “change the nature of the second floor very easily.”

The move in date for groups is slated for the week of Aug. 26.