UCI to Get New Building to Ease Crowding : Facility for Graduate School of Management Will Open in Fall of 1987

UC Irvine will get a new building to help alleviate overcrowding, university officials announced Monday.

The $6-million building, to be called the Professional Programs Facility, will be under construction by October and will open in the fall of 1987.

The 37,000-square-foot building will house UCI’s Graduate School of Management and the Institute of Transportation Studies. Both programs have been operating out of UCI’s Social Science Tower, and university officials say the 10,384 square feet that they use is needed by the School of Social Sciences.

Newton Margulies, dean of the Graduate School of Management, said Monday that the increasing demand for enrollment in that graduate program is another major reason for a separate building.

“This year our applications were up 20%,” Margulies said. “There has been a big increase in interest in the program in the past three years.”

The Graduate School of Management is “in a growth area of the country and UCI itself is getting more visibility and is growing,” Margulies said.

Also, he said, the program “caters to the high-tech industries of Orange County; we provide a broad-based management education.”

A separate building, he said, means “we’re not just getting room to expand--we’re getting a home, which will give added validity to the Graduate School of Management program.”

Wilfred Recker, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, said that program also needs more room. “The institute has experienced extraordinary growth in the past five years,” Recker said. “Being located in the Professional Programs Facility will provide the space we need for a much-improved research environment.”

Rapid Enrollment Increase

The building will be financed with $1.5 million from campus funds; $1.5 million from the UC Board of Regents, and $3 million from a commercial loan. The Board of Regents approved the funding at its November meeting in Los Angeles.

UCI’s enrollment has increased rapidly in recent years, despite administrative attempts to cap it. The result has been badly crowded classrooms and use of makeshift facilities, such as a movie theater.

Three new buildings already are under construction. Those are the Donald Bren Events Center, the Beckman Research Building and the Information and Computer Science Engineering Research Facility.

Ground breaking is scheduled within the next fiscal year for five other buildings in addition to the Professional Programs Facility, said Marlene Bumbera of UCI’s office of physical planning. They are the Physical Sciences Unit II, the Campus Clinical Facility, the Engineering Laboratory Facility, the Campus Housing Office and the Public Services Building.

Also, the City of Irvine soon will be building its new theater on the UCI campus.