Here is an 11th question: Can it be said that in the midst of a major budget crisis, UCLA's top priority is to build a hotel/conference center whose downside financial risk in one way or another will be assumed by the campus?
10 Questions: Scott Waugh on the residential conference center and faculty club project
UCLA is planning a residential conference center featuring 33,000 square feet of meeting and conference space and 282 hotel rooms. Project plans also include a new faculty club with a 300-seat dining room, an outdoor dining area, meeting space and an entrance separate from the conference center. The project would be built on the site of the existing Faculty Center and a portion of Parking Lot A south of Murphy Hall.Some current and retired faculty and neighbors have voiced concern about the loss of the existing Faculty Center, the project’s financial feasibility, traffic and other impacts, among other issues.
Recently, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh sat down with UCLA Today to discuss the project and planning process and address some of the criticism.
Why do you believe this project is important to UCLA?
It’s important to understand that a very significant aspect of academic life is reaching out to different constituencies, sharing information, collaborating with different groups and scholars, and engaging in broad discussions of academic and civic import. The conference center will afford us the opportunity to host conferences, workshops and various kinds of platforms in which faculty can engage with others from around the globe. We’ll be able to discuss important topics that resonate with both our academic and civic community.
For example, we’re engaged in CleanTech Los Angeles, a partnership that involves the city, UCLA, USC, Caltech and others. The conference center would be an ideal venue to bring together those constituencies and the people who are affected by green technology in L.A.
Academic life and civic life depend upon opportunities to engage with others, to debate and discuss topics that are relevant to your institution. So having a state-of-the-art facility on campus to enable those kinds of interactions would be very, very advantageous to UCLA. It’s something that would strengthen all of our goals of diversity, of civic engagement, of academic excellence, and it’s something we very much need in order to push UCLA forward into its second century.
How can you be sure there’s enough demand for a conference center and hotel rooms? Isn’t it unusual to have a hotel on campus?
We’ve spoken with faculty and to deans around the campus, and we have a sense of the kinds of conferences and meetings they want to hold, the outreach events they want to host. On top of that, we’ve done extensive market surveys to confirm in more detail exactly what the demand for a facility like this would be on campus, and to understand that demand in the context of the larger conference and hotel market in the region. Everything we’re seeing points to very strong demand.
It’s important to understand that that demand is very broad-based and comprehensive. It’s not just a few academic departments that are looking to have a conference center. It’s the whole range of activities that require modern meeting facilities and accommodations. We want to bring the parents of prospective and current students here. We want to bring prospective donors to campus as well as alumni. And the more we become an international university, the more we are going to have to host delegations from other countries. We are going to want to put all of these visitors in facilities that cast us in the best light possible and keep us competitive with other universities around the world. So the demand is really quite great for university-related uses. Having a venue that is readily available and accessible to every corner of campus is really important. It’s not at all unusual for universities to have these kinds of facilities. UCLA has overnight accommodations at the Guest House and the Tiverton House. The problem with those two venues is that they’re so much in demand; they’re overused, and we have difficulty scheduling meetings on campus or scheduling people to come to campus to stay. In addition, it’s important to understand that we’re not very well-served by hotels in the area. This is a problem in Los Angeles; we just don’t have conference center sites. It’s not just the hotel but the conference facilities that are important to us, and it’s very difficult to find that.
How does the campus plan to pay for and operate the residential conference center and faculty club?
The gift from Meyer and Renee Luskin is really important, obviously, for making the project financially feasible and making it come to fruition. But it will be funded primarily by revenues from project operations. We will issue bonds, and the debt on those bonds will be paid with revenues from operations. Our financial feasibility studies were conducted on a very conservative basis, using conservative estimates of occupancy and meeting room bookings, catering and the like. We held ourselves to very high standards designed to ensure prudent financial management. Housing and Hospitality Services will operate the project, and it is providing a $4.5 million loan from its substantial reserves to compensate Parking Services for spaces in Lot A lost to construction. No revenue from either tuition or state support will be going into this. We think it’s a conservative and prudent financing plan. Another word about the Luskin gift. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that they also provided a $10 million endowment to provide funding for departments that may not have the kind of resources to host events in the residential conference center once it’s up and running. So the opportunities for conferences will be open to a whole range of departments and disciplines across the campus, and not just to those departments that can afford to pay for use of the center, even though the prices are pretty reasonable, given the costs of running conferences today.
What’s your reaction to project critics who say the process lacks transparency and that the administration has not sought enough input? Specifically, they want UCLA to release the marketing and feasibility analysis for the project.
First of all, I think it’s important to say that we are committed to transparency. We want to have everything out and available for people to look at, assess and make judgments about. Financial feasibility information has been posted to the Academic Senate and other websites, and it’s available for everybody to look at. The market analysis will be made available as soon as we hear from the consultant about the treatment of their proprietary information in the report. We want to show people what the basis of our decision-making has been. Once they see this, they’ll agree that the project is not only feasible, but it’s very doable and something we should proceed with.
Aside from that, it’s important to understand the planning for this really began in 2008. Since that time there have been multiple meetings with various groups — including Academic Senate bodies and neighborhood groups. We have had discussions with deans, who aided and contributed to the development of a preliminary proposal. There were extensive interviews with deans as part of the process of assessing the feasibility of the project. So there have been numerous occasions during which the plans have been put forward and discussed by various groups, including the Faculty Center Association. It was consulted on a number of occasions about what the plans meant going forward for the Faculty Center. In addition, we’re scheduling an informational meeting in the very near future to update the campus community and our neighbors. There will also be ample opportunity for public comment during the environmental review process after the draft environmental impact report is released, probably in May. Materials are currently available online, and certainly anyone who wants to comment on them should take a look and send us comments. In fact, many faculty have already done so. We’re committed to hearing those kinds of comments, understanding them and seeing how they can be incorporated into our plans, and then make adjustments accordingly.
Among the concerns that have been expressed is the compatibility of the project with the residential neighborhoods across the street, especially traffic impacts. How will these concerns be addressed?
Obviously we want to be a good neighbor. We’re very mindful of the fact that we’re a large organization, with a very large population here, and we do our best to mitigate impacts on the beautiful residential neighborhood in which we reside. We’re very sensitive to concerns about traffic and over the years have taken many steps to reduce traffic to and from UCLA. We are in the process of preparing a draft environmental impact report expected to be available in May. That document will analyze potential impacts such as traffic as well as any appropriate mitigation measures. We want to make sure that the impact that the project has on the local neighborhood is mitigated.
Opponents of the project have enlisted the help of preservationists and architects and made clear that they plan to challenge it on grounds that the Faculty Center is an historic structure deserving of historic designation and preservation. What do you make of that?
First of all, let me say that I understand the attachment to the Faculty Center. It has served UCLA very well for more than 50 years and been part of faculty and academic life, something that has been extremely important to all of us. I don’t want to minimize the importance of protecting the past — our architectural past. It’s something that we take very seriously here at UCLA. We have a wonderful architectural heritage that we take extensive pains to protect and enhance whenever we can, and it’s important to evaluate any particular structure in light of UCLA’s storied past and the building’s functionality as well as its contribution to the university’s ongoing mission.
The draft environmental impact report will include an objective expert analysis of the cultural and historical significance of the building itself, apart from its function as a faculty center. The question it will answer is: Is the building truly historical and deserving of some kind of preservation? There will be ample opportunity for comment on the expert analysis in the draft environmental report. I will say that it’s very important to consider the fact that, as an organization, the Faculty Center must continue; there must be an opportunity for faculty to get together in an environment that they consider their own. But that is apart from the issue of the historical significance of the structure itself.
What will happen to the Faculty Center and its employees?
Certainly we’re very concerned about the employees, and we want to make sure that in any transition to a new faculty club, the employees will be taken care of and that they will not lose their jobs. The Faculty Center itself has lots of problems. It is a private club operated by the Faculty Center Association, and it has been losing money. In addition, it faces really significant structural issues that are going to cost over $1 million to take care of. It has some reserves, but it is not at all clear that the Faculty Center in its present formulation is viable. The funding model is not sustainable. To make it sustainable would require large increases in fees for members and for the cost of meals. We think that the faculty club’s inclusion in the conference center project is actually a better solution for its long-term health and viability, something that will allow it to flourish and prosper in the future. During project construction, we’re looking at temporary facilities for the faculty club in Ackerman Union. Renovating a portion of Ackerman to accommodate the faculty club on a temporary basis would also be a benefit to students in the long run.
Wouldn’t it be less expensive and less risky to upgrade existing conference facilities, perhaps at the Faculty Center or elsewhere, and provide lodging elsewhere?
Upgrading the existing conference facilities at the Faculty Center would cost a lot of money, and since it’s a private club operated by the Faculty Center Association, members would need to use their own money to upgrade the facilities. If they were able to find the money to provide the upgrade that’s necessary, that would be one thing. But the other thing is that the current Faculty Center is too small for its purpose. It does not adequately meet the campus’ needs as a whole for meeting space.We think it makes much more sense to build a replacement building on the site that could meet all of the different needs of the campus, rather than just the needs of the Faculty Center. So the residential conference facility provides a solution to the Faculty Center problem. It would provide space for Faculty Center functions as well as add considerable space for additional conference facilities. We think the site is ideally suited for both a residential conference center and a private faculty club. The draft environmental impact report will address the issue of alternatives and the suitability of the site.
Why do you think this project is controversial?
I think there’s been lot of sentimental opposition, and that helps make it controversial. People are worried about losing something that they’ve held very close to them for a long time, something that’s been near and dear to the heart of faculty and academic life here for 50 years. Change is difficult; it’s hard to contemplate these kinds of things. And any time the state is cutting back — when there’s lots of talk of financial problems, when you undertake a project of this scope — people are going to be asking, “How could we afford this? Why would we do this?” For the neighborhood, of course, a project like this is going to cause anxiety.
Those are all legitimate issues. Clearly we want to do as good a job as possible on all three fronts: making it known how we see the new faculty club and how it will benefit the whole faculty; making clear the financials on which the project has been based; and at the same time talking to our neighbors and showing them that we do not think it is going to be as impactful on their lives as they feel. We think that it’s a good project and one that in the long-run, people will come to understand is really to benefit them and UCLA as a whole.
What’s the current timeline for the project?
The draft environmental report is expected in May. After that, there’s a 45-day comment period and a public hearing during which people will have ample opportunity to look at everything that’s available about the project and make comments. Project financing is expected to go to the regents for consideration in May. The final environmental impact report, which will include comments on the draft and any changes, as well as the project design, is currently scheduled for regents’ consideration in September. If they approve that in November, then construction would start in the spring of 2012 and be completed in December of 2014. Obviously, a lot of things within that timeline will have to happen. There are many other things that will go on during that period, but these are the basic milestones.
From http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/10-questions-for-scott-waugh-on-196343.aspx
From http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/10-questions-for-scott-waugh-on-196343.aspx
But maybe someone would prefer not to deal with this "Just one more thing":
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