Southeast to look for alternatives in building alumni center

Southeast Missouri State University still can't afford to build a new alumni center more than 14 months after breaking ground, but school officials say they'll review the situation this summer in an effort to find a solution.

The project was put on hold last year after university officials discovered they didn't have enough private dollars to build it.

University president Dr. Ken Dobbins said school officials this summer may have to scale back the project to lower the cost.

"When the estimate was first put together, we thought we could build it for about $900,000 to $1 million," university president Dr. Ken Dobbins said. But bids came in far higher.

The university bid out the project twice last year, but even the second set of lower bids received by early summer carried a price tag of $1.5 million, school officials said.

Don Dickerson, president of the board of regents, said school officials had no choice but to put the brakes on the project. "It was half a million dollars more than we had. We just had to pull back from it," he said.

The new alumni center was to be named the Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center after its major benefactor. The late Aleen Wehking of Cape Girardeau left $645,000 for the project in her will. Earl and Marjorie Holland of Fort Myers, Fla., were the other major contributors, donating $300,000.

The contributions are appreciated, but so far they aren't enough to pay for a building large enough to serve alumni and foundation needs, Dickerson said.

School officials, who spent much of last year trying to cope with cuts in state funding for basic operations, had put off work on the alumni center project to focus on more pressing issues.

Dickerson said the university may want to look at converting existing space on campus for use as an alumni center.

"It's tough times right now," said Dickerson, adding that there isn't any state money available to help pay for an alumni center. The only way a new center will be built, he said, is with private money.

The university broke ground on the project Feb. 16, 2002. Over 100 people crowded under a red and white tent for the ceremony near Wildwood, once the official residence of school presidents and now a reception hall and guest house on the Cape Girardeau campus.

Alumni officials had proposed building a two-level, white stucco and glass building just southeast of Wildwood on the north part of the campus.

The structure would have housed the offices of alumni services and the fund-raising university foundation. Both are currently housed on Sprigg Street in front of the Show Me Center in a building that formerly was used to assist migrant workers.

The existing location has no place to greet visitors or hold receptions, and it has little meeting space, alumni and university officials have said.

"That building really isn't configured well," Dobbins said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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