CSUN Wrapping Up Its Quake Recovery

It has been eight years since the Northridge earthquake devastated CSUN, and campus officials hope $12 million in new construction projects will wrap up the last of quake-related repairs by fall.

Major roads will be resurfaced, open spaces will be restored to their natural green state and remaining portable classrooms will be removed as part of the finishing touches of Cal State Northridge’s $408-million earthquake recovery, most of it paid with funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“In terms of campus appearance and inconvenience, it will look like more construction is being done--it won’t look like it is waning,” said campus architect Deborah Wylie. “But when it’s done, the campus will have a brightened, enhanced appearance.”

As part of the projects, six 11-foot-high brick signs bearing CSUN’s name will be installed at intersections along Nordhoff Street and a soccer field will be added to the east side of campus. Soccer players currently use the football field at North Campus Stadium, which is soon to be torn down.

With all classes back in permanent buildings, the remaining portable classrooms, as well as the white “domes” that once housed the library and the admissions and records department, will be removed. Several lawns on which the temporary buildings were constructed will get new grass, trees and lighting.

To accommodate paving crews, traffic on portions of Lindley Avenue, Plummer Street and Etiwanda Avenue will be limited to one way from May until possibly October. Landscaped medians will be added and some campus streets will get curbs and gutters for the first time.

But even after these projects are finished, students and professors won’t get a respite from the construction sights and sounds that have plagued the campus for so many years. Work on several major buildings and a parking structure is to continue through 2004.

Construction began in January of four swimming pools next to the Center of Achievement for the Physically Disabled, where CSUN students provide low-cost exercise therapy for 400 disabled people.

The new Abbott and Linda Brown Western Center for Adaptive Aquatic Therapy will include a heated pool with underwater treadmills, a large whirlpool spa, a cool water pool for heat-sensitive people and the West Coast’s first movable-floor pool, which will be able to change depth to accommodate wheelchair-users.

Once the $4.5-million facility opens, the center will be able to serve twice as many people.

“It will probably be the model for the nation as to what a university can do for the community,” Director Sam Britten said.

The Browns contributed $2 million, $1 million came from the federal government and the remainder is being raised through private donations.

In May, construction is to begin on the $7.8-million Sierra Center, which will have two floors for food services as well as offices for University Corp., which manages commercial ventures on campus.

In June, work is to start on a new $14-million parking structure with nearly 1,400 spaces that will be funded with parking permit fees. Unlike the parking structure that collapsed in the Northridge earthquake, this one will be made with concrete poured on site, not precast concrete walls. Officials say the move should make the structure safer.

In late summer, a $15-million renovation of the student union building is to begin. Funding will come from student fee increases of $35 a semester.

And if the Los Angeles Unified School District board gives its approval next month, construction of a $35-million, 870-student academy for high school students interested in pursuing teaching careers will start in August.