Bursting at the Seams
By Sharon Stello/Enterprise staff writer
Davis Enterprise, September 29, 2006
King Hall, which houses the UC Davis School of Law, has changed little since its completion in 1968. But the number of law students, faculty and programs has grown much in four decades. To relieve overcrowding, a $30 million expansion and renovation project is planned for the building.
Construction would begin in winter or early spring 2008 and end in late fall 2009 or winter 2010. Funding includes $17.9 million from Proposition 1D, a bond measure on the Nov. 7 ballot, and $3.9 million in campus funds.
The law school also hopes to raise up to $8 million in donations - more than $2.5 million has already been contributed. If voters don't approve the bond measure, other funding sources will have to be found and the project may be delayed.
King Hall will be expanded to the east, transforming the "C"-shaped building into a circle, enclosing and upgrading the existing courtyard. To make way for the expansion, two "Egghead" sculptures titled "See No Evil/Hear No Evil" will be moved from the grassy mounds on the east side of King Hall to the nearby traffic circle in front of Mrak Hall.
A walking path would later be added between the Eggheads. The sculptures are two of seven created in 1991 by artist Robert Arneson for five sites on campus.
The expansion will add about 29,795 square feet - increasing the building's size by 22 percent. About 20,870 square feet of the existing structure will be renovated. Building systems as well as the campus chilled water and steam utility lines would be upgraded.
Law school Dean Rex Perschbacher said additional space has been needed for some while.
"We're really stretched to our limits right now," Perschbacher said. "It will give us some room to breathe."
Since King Hall's opening, the law school has grown from 337 students and 15 faculty members to 575 students and 39 full-time faculty. Add to that five legal journals, four clinics, an active moot court, programs in trial and appellate advocacy and 22 academic groups, and the building is practically bursting at the seams.
"The space available back in 1968 is effectively the space we have available today," Perschbacher said. "Really, were built for an era two generations ago that's changed quite a bit."
As new programs emerged - in bio-ethics and intellectual property, for example - and legal education evolved over the past four decades, the school has partitioned, converted and reconfigured the building's cramped space to accommodate as much as possible - even adding a computer lab.
Yet space is still tight. There's insufficient space for a student lounge and lockers. More and more classes are held in the evenings because there's no room during the day. The law library must shift some books off-site.
Visiting faculty and retired professors who want to continue teaching must share office space. Legal clinics and the school's alumni relations, development and marketing offices are based in a separate building a few blocks away.
In its 2004 accreditation review, the American Bar Association concluded that the school's facilities are "small and reflect an earlier era in legal education that make it difficult to function as a modern facility."
According to a campus report about the project, the building's configuration is described as "inefficient, disjointed, over-crowded, and fundamentally insufficient to support the teaching, research and service programs of the school."
The expansion project will create a new trial practice room, add a classroom and a couple of seminar rooms, provide additional space for student activities and the library, add office space and consolidate all of the offices into the same wing. The law schools alumni relations, development and marketing offices will move back into King Hall.
Circulation within King Hall will be improved. And the building will gain a more prominent entrance right on Mrak Hall Drive, making it easier for visitors to find.
Perschbacher emphasized that the building expansion is only to meet current needs. There are no plans to increase the number of students admitted to the law school.
We're really rather proud of the fact that of the four public law schools in the state we are by far the smallest, Perschbacher said. We think we have something special to offer.
The size allows faculty members to get to know the students, and vice versa, better than they might in a larger group, Perschbacher said. And the students get to know one other better too, leading to more collaboration and study groups.
Even with the expansion, the law school will still rank below most of its peers in space per student (from 45th to 33rd out of 46 small law schools).
The project will require upgrade of offsite chilled water and steam utility lines. These upgrades likely would not be completed before the building renovation and addition were completed and occupied. Consequently, the project design would include options to provide cooling and heating to the building that do not require reliance upon these upgrades, but which would allow for connections to the campus chilled water and steam loops upon completion of those upgrades.
A draft tiered initial study, which analyzes the potential environmental effects of the proposed project, is available for review. Comments on this study and proposed negative declaration will be accepted until 5 p.m. Oct. 9.
Copies of these documents are available during normal business hours at the Office of Resource Management and Planning, 376 Mrak Hall on campus; at Reserves in the UCD Shields Library; at the Davis Public Library, 315 E. 14th St., Davis; at the Vacaville Public Library, 1020 Ulatis Drive, Vacaville; and online at www.ormp.ucdavis.edu/environreview.
Comments may be e-mailed to environreview@ucdavis.edu or mailed to John A. Meyer, Vice Chancellor of Resource Management and Planning, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616.
For more information, contact Sid England, director of environmental planning, at 752-2432, or Rick Keller, assistant vice chancellor of capital resource management, at 752-2433.
Reach Sharon Stello at sstello@davisenterprise.net or 747-8043.
