Although the new coffeehouses in the campus dorms have been open since the first week of the spring semester, they recently closed The Ground Floor coffeehouse for additional construction. This has prevented dorm residents from utilizing the new facilities, and it has also caused problems for the students living in Los Alamitos, where the coffeehouse is located.
Don Penrod, director of 49er Shops, said additional construction is necessary because the coffeehouse has not been completed according to original construction plans. The Ground Floor is closed until Friday for construction.
“In order to make the opening date by the first of the semester, we…[used] Formica countertops for temporary purposes when we were waiting to fabricate stainless steel countertops,” Penrod said.
Jessica Rogan, a sophomore studying at the Los Alamitos residence hall, said the steel countertops were necessary for food safety.
“If it’s going to get our food safer or cleaner, then yeah, I guess [it’s necessary],” Rogan said.
Freshman Marie Lenoir said the stainless steel counters were important, but she didn’t think it was necessary to close off the lounge area for other repairs.
“I think that the stainless steel counter is necessary, but if they’re doing, like, painting and stuff, then no,” she said.
Freshman Kelly Shepardson thought the coffeehouse was sufficient as it was before the construction.
“I don’t think they should have opened it if it wasn’t done,” she said.
Penrod said efforts were made to schedule the construction on the weekend rather than on weekdays.
“We…tried to just do [the construction] on the weekend, but then the contractor said he didn’t want to work on the weekend,” he said.
Additionally, the construction of The Ground Floor has been disrupting dorm residents.
“They had to turn off the power sometimes, or the water, or both,” Lenoir said.
The Parkside coffeehouse, Central Park, was also closed from Feb. 23 to March 2. According to Penrod, it also needed stainless steel counters and a new floor. The vinyl floor was replaced with a light-blue and yellow vinyl floor.
“[When we opened] we had put some floor down just to get them open by the beginning of the semester, but it wasn’t the actual floor or style that we would actually expect,” Penrod said.
