Multi-million dollar renovations secured for College Circle, Sturges Hall, Milne Library

Photo of College Circle via Photo Editor Kate Rodgers

On Mar. 24, 2022, an email sent by ​​Assistant Vice President Facilities and Planning Robert Ames said that the College has secured funding for a renovation of the College Circle, Sturges Hall, and the continuing renovations of Milne Library. 

The email said that the renovations will begin this summer and are funded by the State University Construction Fund. According to the email and the Geneseo website, the combined cost of the renovations totals around $85 million, with $40 million allocated for Sturges Hall and $35 million for Milne Library.

According to the Geneseo website, the renovations to Milne Library have completed “Phase One,” during which asbestos was removed. The renovations are expected to be completed for the 2024-25 academic year.

Ames said that despite the distant date for completing the renovations to Milne, the project has avoided any major delays and is on track to finish on schedule.

He said, “The good thing about [the Milne Library renovations] is we have not realized any delays in the planning process due to COVID. We’ve been on time, on budget, and on scope with Geneseo and that's worked favorably for us as compared to other campuses in the state. We've been very successful continuing to move the project forward. It is a four to five-year process from the inception of ‘hey, this is a great idea’ to shovels on the ground, to procurement, accounting, design, budget approvals, and COVID delays. But we're still successful in moving our projects on time, on scope, and on budget, the library being one of the biggest ones for us.”

David Norton, Associate Director of Planning and Construction, said that the new Milne Library will be more student-focused, with open study spaces and conference rooms for students to use. There will also be a new café on the ground floor. 

“There's been a lot of research on what is the new library these days, and a lot of it is student interactions and studying together and working together, so we've created many different individual to three person spaces in order to get that sort of small group study and collaboration going. Overall, the whole buildings student oriented, but the main floor really is. You have the café, you have a lot of open areas for study, you have a lot of individual rooms for small group studies, and then we also have the library staff to help students with research and such.”

Ames said that the progress made on projects like the Milne Library renovation in the past years has proven that Geneseo can handle large renovation projects, and that the facility condition index used by the SUNY system highlights Geneseo’s need for renovations like these. 

“I believe it's up to $100 billion in projects over the past two to three years that we've been able to procure. To have the library, Sturges, and some other capital projects all happening within a one to five-year timeframe is unique to Geneseo, and I think it's a good thing. I think that we've proven that we can handle these projects successfully and I think that's helped with us to get some funding. It's also centrally tied to a thing called the facility condition index [FCI] where [SUNY] rates the campuses so the state can plan out where we need to put our money. Geneseo being an original school back in the day, we have a lot of vintage buildings that may require a little more assistance or help and renovation than say SUNY Albany or University of Buffalo.” 

Norton said that he hopes the renovations to buildings like Sturges and the Milne Library are beneficial to students and faculty and predicts that the improved functionality of the renovated buildings will be appreciated.

“When you're working in a building that has not had a renovation in 50 to 60 years, and then is transformed into a building like Bailey Hall, the faculty that we that we move back into Bailey [are] so pleased with the conditions. The functionality of the space and classrooms is a tremendous thing for students as well as the faculty and staff teaching there. It's a tremendous transformation of the aesthetics, quality, and functionality for the staff, students, and faculty,” he said.