The Associated Students House, located adjacent to Duncan Hall, closed on Nov. 1 and will be moved to a new location on Jan. 12 to make room for the brand new eight-story high rise Interdisciplinary Science building.
The San Jose State University Associated Students web page stated, “The Marketing, Events and Human Resources departments will move to temporary workspaces in the Student Services Center on 10th Street.”
The new Science building will not be finished until the anticipated date of 2021 according to former SJSU media relations director Pat Harris. The design and building contractor, McCarthy Building Companies and FLAD Architects will break ground for the new building in April.
The house will be detached from the foundation so that workers can place beams underneath to lift and place the house on rollers.
San Carlos Street will be closed off, as the house will be rolled down the street and down San Fernando to eventually hit its home destination across from 10th street parking lot, by the ATMs where the house will face the Boccardo Business Center.
“It will be a slow crawl, but it is a historic, useful and beautiful house that we want to preserve and this will be its final resting place,” Vice President of Administration and Finance Charlie Faas said.
Ariadna Manzo, A.S. president said that communication with students is the most important thing for them and that they are keeping the communication strong in regards to the relocation.
She also said that A.S. understands the need to relocate.
“We have to make do because we see the bigger purpose. The new science building is much needed, as the facilities right now are not adequate,” said Manzo.
The cost of the new building will be within the $181 million according to SJSU Newsroom.
“This is an expensive thing,” Faas said. “There’s nothing cheap about this. Picking up a historical structure and moving it is costly. Our land is pretty precious,” he added.
The new building will also be the first new academic building to be built at SJSU in 30 years. This is a collaborative effort between the university and Mccarthy Building Companies.
“We’ve been blessed with new buildings like the Student Union and Health and Wellness Center buildings opening up in the past three years, but this is the first academic building in 30 years,” Faas said.
It will also be the largest science building in the CSU system. The building will be eight stories tall and have a logo on the top that people will be able to see when they fly into San Jose on a plane.
“It will face downtown and will brand our campus even more. Everyone in downtown will be able to recognize that we have a state of the art science building that will be the envy of a lot of people,” Faas said.
Faas said that though this will be a long process, he and A.S. are going to continue working together, along with the proper society to be able to preserve the vintage house and make room for the new building.
