$15-Million Science Center Fraught With Problems : Cal State Northridge: Instructors refuse to move into the building because they say equipment is defective. Vibrations may make sensitive instruments unusable.

The much-heralded $15.4-million science center at Cal State Northridge faces so many problems that some professors have refused to move in when it opens later this year, and others are demanding changes before they give up the out-of-date facilities they now occupy.

As described by disappointed faculty members, the problems range from laboratory benches that swell by 50% when they get wet, to vibrations from the climate control system that threaten to render useless the sensitive scientific equipment the center was built to house.

Fingers are being pointed every which way, and even those administrators who remain optimistic that corrections can be made agree that the lingering problems highlight failures in the way the state university system manages construction. They say some of those same obstacles may have led to installation of an inadequate air conditioning system in CSUN faculty offices built in 1984 and to the cave-in of a music building roof at Cal State Long Beach last month.

“Somewhere along the line, the process collapsed, and I suspect it was when dollars became important,” said CSUN chemistry professor Ricardo Silva, who a year ago was appointed liaison between the science faculty and campus planners. “There should have been a lot more consultation with the people who were going to use the facility.”

Construction and outfitting of the three structures that make up the new science center--two filled with laboratories and offices and a third containing a 105-seat planetarium--have been financed largely by state higher-education bonds. The bonds were approved by the Legislature.

The largest outstanding--and most disconcerting--problem with the center appeared earlier this month, when one of the three ventilation fans was turned on. Faculty and administrators on hand for the test said they could feel mild vibrations in the building. When they told their colleagues, panic erupted.

“There had been a general feeling of let’s get in the building and we’ll be able to fix the glitches,” said chemistry professor Henry Abrash. “But when it came to the vibration, a whole wave of concern went through the faculty that this is just not something we could patch up.”

For microbiologist Edward Pollock, witnessing the vibrations made his run-down facilities in one of the 1950s-era science buildings suddenly more attractive. More than half of a floor in the new center was dedicated to his laboratories and classrooms, yet he is among a handful of faculty members who have already indicated they plan to stay put.

“We were supposed to get a good science building and we’re getting a disaster,” Pollock said.

Pollock and his students rely on the magnifying powers of the electron microscope, which enables them to view objects as small as the fibers on a tumor cell. Even now, in its location in a large closet down the hall from his office, there are days when the microscope is unusable because movement in the old building blurs its images, Pollock said.

Bill Chatham, vice president in charge of facilities planning at CSUN, blamed problems in the new building on poor communication among the various parties involved in building at the state universities: the faculty, campus planners, state university system engineers and the site’s architect and contractor. And Chatham said the state formula used to forecast building costs produces estimates that often are unrealistically low, forcing plans to be put out for bid numerous times with quality cutbacks made each time.

The science building was put out for bid three times before a contractor made a bid within the $14.6-million budget, said Peter Ruppel, a representative of the project’s architect, Leo A. Daly. Compromises were made at each stage, such as the quality of wood used in the cabinetry.

“I don’t want to get into a scenario of pointing fingers, because I don’t have enough fingers to point,” he said. “But there was not a lot of feedback to say, ‘We can’t do what you want. Is this going to be satisfactory?’ ”

Even an independent review, first required in 1985 to avoid structural flaws that could lead to disasters such as the music building collapse at Long Beach, never was intended to include review of ventilation systems and cabinet materials, said Richard Esgate, the consultant hired to critique most state university construction plans.

A walk through CSUN’s existing science buildings illustrates the need for the new center, faculty said. Insect storage cabinets line the hallways, safety showers drip on classroom floors, modern equipment is squeezed into supply closets, and some faculty offices are in portable classrooms.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) who fought for three years to obtain funding for the new science center, said he had not heard about the problems before Friday.

“After all we had to go through to get the money for that building, if they screwed it up by cutting corners or not supervising or hiring the wrong contractor, I’m going to be really mad,” Katz said. “There are hundreds of bureaucrats in the state university system whose job it is to make sure taxpayers’ money is not wasted, and if they’re not doing their job, then it’s time for them to be replaced.”

Currently, construction costs are more than $600,000 over the original $14.6-million budget, according to statistics supplied by the CSU system and the Assembly subcommittee on higher education. Only about $100,000 remains in a contingency fund set up for last-minute changes.

Discovery of the new center’s shortcomings was gradual. Some faculty recall voicing concerns when architectural drawings first came to them for review five years ago. Others said they didn’t realize there were glitches and gaffes until construction started in 1987. Still others said their first hint that things were not as they should be emerged last summer during tours of the partly completed center.

All faculty interviewed said they trusted the Omaha-based architectural firm the campus has used for many of its construction projects to see that their often unusual needs were accommodated. Other projects done by the Leo A. Daly firm include the renovation and expansion of the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science and design of the Earth and Space Science Laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

In the end, astronomy professors found that seats in the new planetarium were installed at a permanent incline, making use of the building as a lecture hall uncomfortable if not impossible. Biology professors found their classrooms were equipped with lighting that automatically turns on when someone enters the room, which precludes darkening the room to project slides or films. Chemistry professors found ventilation hoods installed over student experiment stations lacked the necessary electrical outlets or sinks.

Dean Skovlin, chairman of the chemistry department, took a piece of the pressed-wood material used for two-thirds of the science benches back to his laboratory and immersed it in a beaker of water. He said it expanded by half overnight, and even when dried out again it remained swollen by 30%.

“You can imagine what’s going to happen in a laboratory environment,” Skovlin said. “We’re going to have problems down the line and we’ll be expected to replace those cabinets out of our department budgets.”

Some of the errors have been corrected and many more are slated to be, said Don Bianchi, dean of the School of Science and Mathematics. No complete tally has been made, but so far some of the costs have been borne by the contractor and subcontractors, some by the university, and others have yet to be paid.

The specter of perpetual vibrations is the most serious of the remaining problems, Bianchi said.

The electron microscope is not the only vibration-sensitive instrument scheduled to go into the new buildings, faculty said. Modern college science instruction and research relies on lasers, balances, tissue slicers and a myriad of other precise equipment. Even standard microscopes could be affected if the movement is violent enough.

What perplexes Pollock is that he vividly recalls numerous conversations during the past two years concerning the need to avoid any vibrations.

Pollock said that at one point the architect’s representative, Ruppel, assured him that a separate foundation would be poured for the sensitive equipment area. He said he didn’t realize that the specification had been changed or overlooked until the day the foundation was poured.

Bianchi and other campus administrators hold out hope that the movement occurred primarily because the fans were not balanced properly. A second ventilation test is scheduled in early November .