COD trustees set to pick Berg renovation plan

College of DuPage officials always knew the renovation of the Berg Instructional Center would be rife with complications.

It's the most expensive project in the school's $300 million-plus construction plan. It's awkwardly configured. And tearing it down for a rebuild is too costly.

Still, developing a plan for what to do with the building -- and the adjacent Student Resource Center -- has generated an awful lot of architectural ink so far this year.

Trustees are set tonight to see the sixth version of a plan that now hovers around the $137 million mark -- $40 million more than the first one presented last month.

To pay for the work, the board is proposing students pick up the bulk of the increase via a $5-per-credit-hour fee that would remain in place for 25 years.

The board instituted the fee in 2005 with assurances it would end in seven years, and it was to help offset the $23 million the state promised but failed to deliver to the school's overall plan.

This proposal adds another $30 million to the students' bill.

But board Chairman Micheal McKinnon said in presenting one of the final plans that he believed it was nearly perfect.

The most recent incarnations of the designs would renovate the largest classroom building and the Student Resource Center, put an addition on those buildings, demolish and rework the West Campus and enlarge the physical education complex.

In addition to upgrading the two largest buildings and fixing their flaws, proposed work addresses other issues, too, explained Tom Ryan, COD vice president of administrative affairs.

"We were looking at all the program space we needed and just trying to move it around to where we think it needed to be," he said.

Trustees pitched an 80,000-square-foot-addition to the Berg structure, along with a 20,000-square-foot physical education building addition and new 30,000-square-foot West Campus Community Center. The administration, though, trimmed the size of the Berg addition down to 54,000 square feet and bumped the West Campus structure to 56,000 square feet.

Ryan said that without the change, Glen Ellyn would require the school to pay for new studies about how the large building would impact traffic, storm water flow and detention and parking.

Six visions for COD

College of DuPage officials have seen six proposals in the past month for their largest construction project to date, including:

• 20,000-square-foot addition to Berg Instructional Center and Student Resource Center, extensive BIC renovation, minor SRC renovation. Cost: $97.7 million

• 80,000-square-foot BIC and SRC addition, moderate BIC renovation, minor SRC renovation, demolish building M and move programs to BIC. Cost: $106.8 million

• 150,000-square-foot BIC and SRC addition, basic BIC renovation, minimal SRC renovation, demolish building M and move programs to BIC. Cost: $106.8 million

• 28,000-square-foot BIC and SRC addition, moderate BIC renovation, minor SRC renovation, demolish building M, 16,000-square-foot PE building addition, build 28,000-square-foot West Campus Community Center. Cost: $109.2 million

• 80,000-square-foot BIC and SRC addition, extensive BIC renovation, minor SRC renovation, 20,000-square-foot PE building addition, new 30,000-square-foot WCCC. Cost: $137.3 million

• 54,000-square-foot BIC and SRC addition, extensive BIC renovation, minor SRC renovation, 20,000-square-foot PE building addition, new 56,000-square-foot WCCC. Cost: $136.8 million

Source: College of DuPage