The Arizona Board of Regents approved nearly $35 million dollars worth of renovations to ASU dining facilities, buildings and Sun Devil Stadium at its meeting at UA Friday.
About $4.8 million in renovations to dining facilities in the Memorial Union, Manzanita and Palo Verde Main came after regent and student concerns that approval would pressure the Regents into approving a possible mandatory meal-plan proposal in March.
The original meal-plan proposal stated the revenue earned would be applied to renovating the dining facilities.
"We can't set the cart before the horse," Student Regent Benjamin Graff said. "This item is inevitably intertwined with the meal plan."
Regent Ernest Calderon said an addition to the renovation proposal clarifying that the project would not be funded by mandatory meal-plan revenues was necessary.
"We need to assuage the concerns of the students," he said. "We need to clarify that future meal plan money, if there is a meal plan, will not be used to fund this project."
ASU President Michael Crow guaranteed students and the regents the meal-plan revenue would not fund the renovations.
"Nothing associated with this project will come from future meal-plan revenue," Crow said.
Aimee Gipper, chair of the meal plan committee, said the committee has not decided where the revenue would go if the proposal is passed at the ABOR meeting in March.
"It will probably go back to the places where we took the money to pay for the renovations," Gipper said. "It's kind of like a circle."
Graff said Crow's guarantee was not enough to ease the concerns of students. He said students feel like the issues are still connected, since they were intertwined so tightly before being separated just two days before the ABOR meeting.
"The students feel like this is a smokescreen," Graff said.
He added he would like to see a student referendum to further discuss the renovations and the meal plans.
Crystal Choi, a political science junior and Undergraduate Student Government senator for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said the meal plan committee should reconsider the mandatory meal plans if their revenue is not needed to fund the renovations.
"The renovation of the MU was an appealing fact," she said. "But since that factor is gone now, I don't know how the meal plans are still appealing."
Graff was the only Regent who voted against the proposal.
According to the proposal, the construction for the projects would begin in January 2006 and be completed in August.
The Regents also approved $20 million in renovations to various buildings around campus as part of an Academic Renovations and Deferred Maintenance Project.
According to the proposal, the money will be split between renovations in various classrooms on campus, roof replacement and repairs, fire alarm upgrades and many other renovations needed around campus.
ASU also requested $10 million to repair damages to Sun Devil Stadium.
According to Carol Campbell, chief financial officer for ASU, the money will go to correcting drainage problems and prevent further deterioration of the stadium.
Regent Fred Boice said the stadium was damaged because cleaners had to hose it down after Arizona Cardinals' games due to the mess of beer sales.
After fixing the water-damaged infrastructure, money will be applied to making the restrooms more adequate.
Reach the reporter at tara.brite@asu.edu.
