USU bookstore under construction
The Utah State University Bookstore is under construction and remodeling “to upgrade the facility so that we have brand new merchandise fixtures that will allow us to present the merchandise more easily,” Dave Hansen, director of the bookstore, said.
“We want it to be easier for students to shop,” Hansen said. Our primary objective is to make sure that the facility will serve students’ needs for about the next five years. So it is not only an upgrade, it’s to provide capacity to serve enrollment growths through a five-year period.
“The money that the bookstore is using for the remodel is money that the bookstore has set aside and actually saved. There are no student fees involved and there are no tax dollars involved.”
The upgrade has been in the planning “for about three years, of course most intensely probably during this last year,” Hansen said.
Hansen hopes they will be able to serve the students faster, “which is always a challenge because students like to buy their books at the same time.”
Rachael Bonitz, a freshman interior design major, said, “It’s exciting to see the university beginning to modernize. The bookstore needed a full makeover, especially with the student population growing. Something needed to change.”
Hansen said, “The remodel process will include both stores but we can’t shut completely down because obviously we have a college campus to serve. So what we are doing is taking the oldest store first, which is the north store, and so what we have done is moved everything but textbooks to the south store and then with fantastic cooperation from Vice President Gary Chambers we are locating our textbooks up in Rooms 335 and 336 for the summer term only. It will not be for the fall because it will be finished by then.”
After the north store is finished then “in another year the south store will be remodeled,” he said.
The USU Bookstore employees will not need to worry about losing their jobs either because “they are just going to be cutting back some of the hours so we will all still have our jobs,” Jinaya Gruninger, a USU Bookstore employee, said.
Hansen said some of the plans in the north store include “the ceiling coming down. We are going to knock out some walls and the floor is coming up. We have until the 15th to be out of the facility and then it will be closed and turned over to a contractor.”
“The hallway is also going to be widened, at least in front of the Bookstore. On both sides of the hall the hallway will be set back six feet on each side so there will be a total gain of about 12 feet primarily because the student population is growing and the hallway is at its capacity,” he said.
“Students should be able to find everything that they need or are familiar with in the south store,” he said.
“We just invite people’s patience and our Web site will continue to function. If there are any questions, the whole staff is in tune with the fact that this is a horrible inconvenience for our customers so if students have questions we encourage them to ask because this is not for anyone else but our students,” Hansen said.
Friday at 5 p.m. the north store will be closed and will not be reopened until Aug. 1.