UI renovating president’s office, house
University of Iowa currently has an interim president who works out of a permanent office.
By the time the next permanent UI president starts the job, however, odds are that he or she will be spending a few months working out of an interim office as well as living in temporary quarters.
Taking advantage of the break between presidents, UI officials are in the beginning stages of a $500,000 renovation of the UI President’s Office at 101 Jessup Hall and already have begun addressing about $1.5 million in deferred maintenance at the UI President’s Residence at 102 Church St.
“They are both important buildings on our campus and serve important roles,” said Rod Lehnertz, UI’s interim senior vice president and director of planning, design and construction. “Taking care of them so that we don’t have long-standing and more and more expensive deferred maintenance is a very important thing. These projects, not unlike other buildings on our campus, need that care. It’s just that these only happen when a president isn’t here.”
By the end of the fall semester, Lehnertz said, the work on both projects will reach the point that the spaces will be usable for several months. Both projects should be completed before the end of the spring semester.
Each project is estimated to cost under the $2 million total that requires design approval by the full Iowa Board of Regents. Lehnertz and Interim UI President Jean Robillard are expected to provide an update to the regents on the plans during the board’s Sept. 9 meeting in Cedar Falls.
“I’m very pleased the transition provides us an opportunity to complete some much needed maintenance on this historic home,” Robillard said via email. “This is not only the residence of the university president but a landmark on campus that serves as a host site for more than 200 events a year.”
The initial estimate for work on 101 Jessup Hall is around $500,000, Lehnertz said. The estimates for the deferred maintenance on the 13,000-square-foot 102 Church St. is expected to be in the $1.5 million range.
“That number can sound, to some, high at first,” Lehnertz said of the estimate for the President’s Residence. “But the differed maintenance needs in the building are considerable. And the scale of the building makes the (process) more expensive.”
The money for both projects, Lehnertz said, will come from a combination of non-general-fund sources that UI uses for such building funds — such as building renewal funds and the treasurer’s temporary investment fund.
102 Church St.
Only about one-tenth of the total square footage at the 106-year-old house at 102 Church St. is devoted to the president’s living space.
The footage also includes a garage added between the presidencies of Mary Sue Coleman and David Skorton, guest rooms for visiting dignitaries, two large porches, a first floor that is devoted almost entirely to public events and a third-floor “ballroom” that is accessible only through a small staircase.
“The primary purpose of the house is for university advancement,” Lehnertz said. “The entire first floor of the building is what we would call a public floor for events held on behalf of the university.”
Although giving off a “residential feel,” every room within the public first floor is designed to accommodate gatherings of up to about 60 people. When the weather cooperates, that number can grow into the hundreds by using the porches and attached tents, and can even reach the thousands during block parties.
With former UI President Sally Mason having moved out in July, the residence area is essentially bare — waiting for the new president and his or her family to fill it with their own furnishings.
If the new president has school-age children, the living space can be expanded by taking over some of the guest rooms, Lehnertz said.
Facility officials have not yet decided where the temporary quarters will be for the new president. They have been working with the President’s Office and UI Foundation to find new locations for the public events that otherwise would be hosted at the residence.
“We’ve got other facilities that serve as event space, including the Levitt Center,” Lehnertz said. “But nothing quite like 102 Church. So we’ll miss it for those events, but we’re certainly be able to have interim solutions.”
101 Jessup Hall
A renovation of 101 Jessup Hall has been long overdue, Lehnertz said.
“It is an office suite that, because of its layout, doesn’t serve those working in the space well and does not at all serve those visiting in the space well,” he said.
The office area basically still has the same office structure that it had when Jessup Hall was built in the 1920s, Lehnertz said.
“It has perimeter offices that are generally oversized that support the president and the president’s work and each of those offices has another office inside of it,” Lehnertz said. “Decades and decades ago, that was an administrator and a secretary doing dictation and other things. It’s a very outdated way of doing business.”
Although there have been some improvements over the decades, “the layout of the space has not changed since Sandy Boyd was here and, in fact, Sandy Boyd adopted it as a layout that predated him.”
Boyd, who served as president from 1969 to 1981, said his predecessor, Howard Bowen, had asked the regents for permission to expand the president’s office into the House of Representatives chamber within the Old Capitol.
“Thankfully they turned him down,” Boyd said. “People would come into the (Old Capitol) building and be greatly disappointed that there was nothing historic about it. That it was just an office building.”
After the English Department moved from Jessup Hall into the English and Philosophy Building on Iowa Avenue along the Iowa River, what had been the office for the chairman of the English Department, Boyd said, became the office for the UI president.
“We didn’t change anything,” Boyd said.
UI officials have not decided on a temporary office location for the president and the nearly 10 employees — a combination of part-time and full-time — who work in 101 Jessup.
It seems unlikely, however, that the new president would move back temporarily into the historic office preserved in the Old Capitol. The president’s presence probably would disrupt the day-to-day operation of the museum, and the influx of visitors would disrupt the day-to-day operation of the president’s office.
“We will work hard to not disrupt other elements of the university when looking at the interim solutions,” Lehnertz.
Awaiting new leader
As UI officials make decisions about temporary relocations, 101 Jessup and 102 Church are still in active use.
Robillard, as interim president, is working out of the office, and the residence has been playing host to some private events featuring the four finalist candidates looking to become UI’s 21st president.
The first two finalists visited campus last week. The last two will visit Monday and Tuesday — with a public forum scheduled from 4:45 to 6:15 p.m. each day in the Iowa Memorial Union.
The regents are scheduled to select one of those finalists during their Thursday meeting in Iowa City, but it probably will be a few weeks — or months — before that person can start the job.
And it will be another few months after that before the new president will have a permanent office and residence.
That might help set the tone for the new administration.
As Boyd said when serving as interim president in 2003, “All (university) presidents are interim.”
Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @jeffcharis.
History of 102 Church St.
The University of Iowa President’s Residence stands on a bluff overlooking the Iowa River. This neo-Georgian home was completed in 1909 for a total cost of $25,067. Proudfoot and Bird were the architects, and B.A. Wickham was the contractor.
The original home contained 16 rooms and four bathrooms. The house now offers over 12,000 square feet of living area.
There are five main rooms on the first floor — living room, dining room, kitchen, library, sun room — and two half baths. A spacious porch on the west side provides an excellent retreat for entertaining nearly year round.
The president’s private quarters on the second floor include a living room, study, four bedrooms and four baths. On the third floor there is a large room which over the years has served as a lecture hall, ballroom, storage area and office. There is also a bedroom and bath on this floor.
Source: http://president.uiowa.edu/presidents-residence/history-house