UI officials expect Hancher completion in June 2016

IOWA CITY –In the first release of a major flood recovery project timetable, University of Iowa officials said Wednesday they expect a new Hancher Auditorium to be complete by June 2016.

Other major flood-recovery projects and their expected completion dates are: new School of Music facility in downtown Iowa City, May 2016; new Studio Arts facility, December 2015; Iowa Advanced Technology Labs, September 2013; and Iowa Memorial Union, May 2014.

“We've been striving for that for a while,” UI President Sally Mason said of releasing a timetable of major recovery and replacement projects.

Doug True, senior vice president for finance, called the timetable the “first meaningful list” of expected completion dates, now that officials are close enough on the details to have reasonable dates in mind.

UI officials also recently received in writing for the first time the Federal Emergency Management Agency contribution toward the major building replacement projects - Hancher, the School of Music and Studio Arts. Building new facilities to replace those flood-damaged buildings is estimated at $386 million. Of that total, FEMA will pay $266 million, and the UI will get $40 million from insurance, which leaves $80 million to cover.

Now comes the discussion about cash flow, budgeting or possible project downsizing to decide about covering that remaining amount, UI officials said.

“We finally have some numbers from FEMA so we now can start deciding,” Carroll Reasoner, UI general counsel, said.

UI officials hope to sign off on the “big picture plan” with FEMA and the agency's expected contribution on every project by the end of June, Reasoner said.

The first major recovery to be completed will be Art Building West, which UI officials expect to reopen in October this year. Repairing Art Building West, which opened in 2006 on Riverside Drive, in the wake of the June 2008 flood was a $14 million project.

“It's our first major recovery project to begin and to finish, so it's an important project for us,” Rod Lehnertz, UI director of planning, design and construction, said.

A replacement facility for Studio Arts will be built adjacent to but up the hill from Art Building West. UI officials had hoped to buy a larger plot of private land in that area but negotiations failed, officials said. So they will proceed with that project on a smaller, more constricted site on UI-owned land on River Street. It's important to keep Studio Arts and Art Building West in proximity to each other, officials said.

The timelines for the completion of the three major replacement projects will be longer than normal given some of the required processes and steps by FEMA, True said. But UI officials and architects are working “full speed” to make progress, True said.

Schematic designs and specific project budgets will be submitted to the regents for approval. Designs and budgets are expected in November for both Hancher and the School of Music and in September for Studio Arts.