River Campus plans altered to include rest rooms

No rest rooms.

That situation faced Southeast Missouri State University officials after plans for a welcome center at the River Campus fell through.

Without a welcome center, the university was left without any provision for rest rooms for the performance hall and other theater spaces now under construction.

So university officials, with the help of an architectural and engineering firm, hastily came up with a new plan for providing restrooms while also adding dining and reception space as part of a "convocation center"

It will be built as an addition on the west side of the performance hall. It will connect to the lobby that will serve all of the performance spaces as well as the adjacent museum.

Southeast president Dr. Ken Dobbins said the university needs restrooms to serve the crowds that would attend theatrical and dance performances and concerts.

"We had to have it," said Dobbins.

Drawn up in less than a week, the convocation center will fit into the same exterior design that was originally set out for the welcome center.

It will be a quarter-moon-shaped, single-story structure with a curving red masonry wall designed to complement the nearby historic, brick seminary building. The brick wall will extend above the convocation roof to conceal air conditioning equipment, Dobbins said.

It also will soften the Fountain Street view of the massive River Campus performance hall, he said.

The 2,600-square-foot addition will include a food-preparation and serving area with warmers to heat up catered meals, Dobbins said. The structure won't have a full kitchen, he said.

Meals still would be prepared elsewhere and transported to the building. But the convocation center will make it easier to hold dinners and receptions at the River Campus, Dobbins said.

"This is really important in my estimation for the quality of this venue," the university president said.

The project is expected to cost $1.6 million, bringing the total price tag of the River Campus development to more than $53 million.

At the very least, the university would have had to build restrooms at a cost of $600,000, Dobbins said.

Jacobs, a St. Louis architectural and engineering firm, put together three options at the urging of Dobbins and board president John Tlapek.

The options:

* Construct only the bathrooms and a freestanding, curved wall to mimic the original design. Cost -- $600,000.

* Construct the bathrooms and the shell of a space that could be finished on the inside later. Cost -- $1.16 million.

* Construct the entire addition at one time. Cost -- $1.62 million.

The first two options ultimately would have cost more if the university were to wait and finish the improvements in 2010, Dobbins said.

The total cost would have climbed to as much as $2.37 million for the first option and to $1.89 million for the second option.

"It's less expense if we do it now than finish it in 2010," the university president said.

Dobbins said the addition is expected to be finished by the time the rest of the River Campus development is completed next summer.

The university plans to pay much of the cost with left-over contingency money from the River Campus bond proceeds. "We have over $1 million left in the contingency fund," Dobbins said.

Under the welcome center plan, the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau would have provided $250,000 toward the about $1 million welcome center. The CVB also would have been housed in the welcome center and paid rent to the university.

With the new addition, Southeast won't get any funding from the CVB, Dobbins said.

Music professor Dr. Gary Miller, director of the River Campus arts school, said the addition will provide needed reception and banquet space. Both the university and the city could utilize the space for gatherings.

The space also could host art exhibits, he said.

Miller said the latest plan makes more sense than building a welcome center. "If you think about a connection between a performing arts center and a welcome center, in your mind it is a little difficult to get a tie between the two," he said.

Mayor Jay Knudtson has suggested it would make more sense to have a welcome center located along Interstate 55 to serve the needs of travelers.

Miller said the addition to the River Campus will better serve patrons of the arts.

"I think this is going to be a very good solution," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123