Siverson Lounge Starbucks coffee kiosk deferred until spring break
Construction of the Siverson coffee kiosk Campus Life announced in January 2018 to be open for business in February has been postponed until spring break, according to Director of Campus Life Corey Kopp.
Kopp said the university had difficulty finding enough hands to complete the construction during interim break. He said during this time of year, it is “hard to find a tiler to do the kind of tile work we needed done within the time frame we were looking for.”
Kopp said since the kiosk is a smaller project in such a large community, it can be considered “small potatoes” for local contractors.
The university hopes to open the kiosk in the next three to four weeks. “It just depends on if everything goes smoothly from this point forward,” Kopp said.
Students are patiently awaiting the remodeled lounge. Freshman Sarah Moore said she will use the area as more of a study place once everything is completed.
Along with finding the workers to complete the project within the right time frame, maintenance also realized there were infrastructure concerns in the Morrison Commons that needed to be addressed before construction.
“It’s an old building,” Kopp said. “Once you actually open it up and look inside it’s hard to be sure of where things actually run and what connects where. What looks like it’s going to be easy on paper proves to be much more difficult in practice.”
A floor drain connecting the lounge to the septic system needs to be built, and the hired carpenter ran into some calculation errors when he began to cut into the flooring where the floor drain would be placed, according to Kopp. The calculations on how thick the flooring in the lounge ended up being about an inch off.
Kopp said it is important the measurements are correct so builders can assemble the kiosk correctly and efficiently the first time.
Students can still expect wood finishing around the kiosk. Kopp said the week of Feb. 25 is when an install crew plans to furnish the cabinetry for the kiosk.
Freshman Keionni Knight said she thinks more tables would be beneficial to the lounge if the goal is to make the room more studious.
New furniture in the Siverson is still to be determined. According to Kopp, the administration will decide if ordering new furniture is in the budget next week. If there is, Kopp said Campus Life could place the first furniture order in the first week of March.
