Revlon design to be made public

The campus center building committee will present the plans for the Revlon Center next month for University-wide feedback before final drawings are completed in March, administrators said yesterday. The campus center, which will be built on the parking lot on Walnut Street between 36th and 37th streets, will be completed by June 1995 at the latest and should cost between $50 and $60 million, Executive Vice President Marna Whittington said last night. "We are designing a center that will serve the community and then figuring out how to fund it," Whittington said. "If we did it the other way, [the quality of] the center would come up short." For the past several months, the Revlon Center's building committee has been discussing how various spaces in the campus center will be used. However, they have not yet allocated spaces to specific groups. University administrators said they hope to break ground in a year and will spend 18 to 24 months building the center. The Revlon Center will be designed to be user-friendly for students and architectually open and airy, Vice Provost for University Life Kim Morrisson said yesterday. "You should be able to see other activity in the building, but you would not be disturbed by it," Morrisson said. "Some of the facility will be accessible 24 hours a day." The campus center will be divided into two main areas -- a multi-story cylinder with several wings including a low-level arm and a multi-story building across the street from the Mellon Bank Building. The area between the two structures will be grassy and available for students to lounge. The plans for the campus center have changed little since the architectural firm Kohn, Pederson and Fox presented them one year ago. However, the plans for the Book Store have been modified so that the store is entirely above ground. Initially, architects proposed putting the Book Store underground, but Morrisson said the basement arcade would be too difficult to maintain. "The Book Store will have the identity of a bookstore by separating the books and the retail," Morrisson said. "You will enter it from the main entrance." Morrisson and Whittington said there would be several restaurants throughout the complex, a 24-hour study area served by a restaurant, a browsing library and a music listening center. "By having University-run restaurants they could serve the community better," Whittington said. "If a student wanted to eat a Tastycake, a cup of coffee and study for an hour and a half they could -- the owner shouldn't have to worry about turning over the table." Under the current plan, the center will also contain an art gallery, auditorium and a black box theater -- a student performing space that can accomodate many types of performing arts activities. Morrisson added that the Women's Center, a Health Education Unit and Student Life Programs will all be in the center.

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