Cannon club will now reopen in February 2010

Those waiting expectantly for Cannon Club to reopen in February 2009 can give up hope. In an interview Tuesday, Warren Crane ’62, president of the Dial Elm Cannon (DEC) Graduate Board, said that he plans for the club to open in February 2010, in time for the Class of 2012 to have the opportunity to be the first official members of Cannon since its doors closed in 1972.

“We definitely want to announce that we won’t be taking any undergraduate members at the end of this semester for the spring semester of 2009,” Crane said. “We’ll be making announcements in the spring and fall semester of 2009 as to the exact process that is going to be utilized for selection of the first membership section.”

“I’m absolutely certain Cannon Club will open by 2010,” Crane said.

The plans for the restoration should be underway soon, he explained. “We’ve had half a dozen contractors review the plans and submit bids, and we’ve already selected the one we intend to use,” Crane said. “Now we’re just finalizing the contract with the construction companies.”

Rumors of Cannon reopening have been circulating for nearly a decade since the DEC Board successfully bought the club back from the University in 2001 after missing a 1999 deadline. Crane had said in 2001 that the club had a 50 percent chance of reopening in 2002.

Then, in May 2007, Crane told The Daily Princetonian that he hoped the club would be ready by February 2008. But these plans were delayed after DEC had difficulties obtaining a building permit.

In February 2008, Crane and University Executive Vice President Mark Burstein both said the club was expected to open in February 2009. In an interview in May 2008, however, Crane said he was no longer sure of the February 2009 date.

All the necessary permits have now been obtained, Crane said Tuesday. “When we submitted the plans to Princeton Borough in 2007, they informed us that they no longer had a class-one reviewer,” Crane said of the problems getting a building permit. “Therefore, we had to submit the plans to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs in Trenton. That process took about 12 months to complete."

A great deal of work still stands in the way of the club’s reopening. “We’re restoring and expanding the dining room so that it will hold 50 percent more people than it used to,” Crane said. “We’re also creating a food, storage and preparation area, a buffet serving area, a library, a computer room, a large TV room, a study room and approximately 10 student residence rooms.”

Of course, there are also the club’s legendary tap rooms. “We’re restoring the green and red tap rooms, as well as adding a third,” Crane said. “The space between the red and green tap rooms used to be a utility room, but after the University took over the building, they connected the club to the University’s hot water systems. As that space is now vacant, we’ll be using that as an additional tap and party room.”

The estimated cost of these renovations is between $2.5 million and $3 million, Crane said. Fixtures and equipment, Crane added, should take another $.5 million to $1 million. New furniture for the club will cost an estimated additional $750,000.