by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
Student Sarah Shannon was excited to see a dirt lot where Wagner Hall once stood.
"Everything was rusty. Everything was just really awful in there," said Shannon, a civil engineering graduate student. "So, I think it's a good thing we're getting a new building."
More than 150 people gathered north of the Mechanical
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Engineering Building on Wednesday to celebrate the groundbreaking for the Centennial Engineering Center.
"Some feel this day was long in coming, but the important thing is it's here," said Joseph Cecchi, dean of the engineering college.
Cecchi said the building should be occupied by the fall 2008 semester and is a milestone for the engineering school and the University. The $48 million project is the largest in UNM main campus history, he said.
David Harris, UNM's acting president, spoke at the ceremony.
"When you talk about collaboration, this project and the way it's been funded is a perfect case study," he said.
Private fundraising, several years of legislative appropriations and a student-funded bond issue paid for the building, he said.
"We all need to recognize that this building in this location is going to represent the University into the future in a really superlative way," he said.
The building will be 145,000 square feet and will face University Boulevard near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, said Van Gilbert, the architect who designed Centennial Engineering Center.
Gilbert spoke at the ceremony.
The building was modeled within the John Gaw Meem guidelines that characterize UNM, he said.
It will have stepped facades, prominent entries, deeply recessed windows, sloped walls and a reddish-tan stucco exterior, he said.
"We have an extremely unique campus, the most unique campus
in the United States - in the world actually," he said.
Centennial Engineering Center will replace Wagner Hall, which was primarily used for civil engineering, said Tamara Williams, director of marketing for the school of engineering.
The building will have more space, new technology and state-of-the-art research labs, she said.
Students, faculty and staff had to move their offices, labs and experiments from Wagner Hall to Tapy Hall.
The temporary home for engineering students has poor working conditions because of limited space and boarded windows, but it will be worth it once the new building is completed, Shannon said.
Cecchi agreed.
"This building is really about the students," Cecchi said.
