Four clubs undergo renovations

TI president Michael Portillo ’11 said that his club’s renovations, which include expanding the dining area, building a basement lounge and updating the officers’ quarters, come at a critical time.

“These renovations will be great for the TI membership, providing tons of extra space we have desperately needed for years while renovating a lot of the pieces of the club that had fallen into disrepair due to age,” Portillo said. TI’s renovation project began over the summer and should be completed by the start of the 2011-12 academic year, Portillo added.

Further down Prospect Avenue, Charter has already reupholstered its furniture and resurfaced its hardwood floors, and the club is now in the process of building a recreational area next to the taproom, called the ShopD. This room will serve as a low-key lounge area and have its own sound and lighting system, Charter president Justin Knutson ’11 said in an e-mail.

“The design plans take after the posh ‘ultralounges’ that can be found in upscale clubs in New York, Las Vegas, etc.,” Knutson explained. “Indeed, much of the initial proposal borrowed heavily from the interiors of clubs Tao and Rain in Las Vegas and Marquee in New York.” The lounge should open in either December or January, Knutson said.

At Terrace, undergraduate officers, the graduate board, staff and alumni collaborated on a number projects, club president Andrew Chong ’11 said in an e-mail.

The club’s biggest undertaking this summer was renovating the taproom, Chong said. “We pulled up the bar [and] rotated and moved the whole shebang to a new area of the taproom to make more dance space and better tap access,” he explained.

To renovate the taproom, the club added two more taps, tiled the floor, installed a new sound system and “repainted the walls and ceilings with some dope new murals, including a pregnant goddess and a jazzy gorilla,” Chong said.

Upstairs, the club renovated the kitchen and servery area to be more user-friendly and updated the TV room, adding new furniture and a new screen for the television. The dining room, the pool room and hallways were repainted, and the solarium was “rearranged to be a comfy lounge area/jungle area,” Chong said.

Cap & Gown is currently constructing an addition to the clubhouse that will feature a dining area, balcony, taproom and outdoor patio, club president Rachel Blum ’11 said in an e-mail. The club has also installed a geothermal heating and cooling system and has renovated its woodwork. Blum said she expected club members to have full access to the new addition in February.

Funding, challenges and the future

The clubs relied on different sources of funding to pay for renovations, including alumni donations, graduate boards and student dues.

Portillo said that TI’s renovations are funded solely by alumni support, while Chong noted that Terrace’s renovations were funded through membership dues.

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At Charter, projects are funded through the club’s board of directors, with money coming from annual member social dues and the club’s endowment, Knutson said. He mentioned the possibility of beginning a capital campaign for Charter alumni.

Funding for renovations at Cap & Gown came from alumni and membership dues, Blum said, adding that the club has sponsored fundraising events and that members have participated in phone-a-thons to solicit donations.

The clubs’ renovations have not been without difficulties.

Knutson said that Charter ran into some storage issues, and Blum noted that limited space at Cap & Gown has forced the club “to be creative for special events.”

“The old taproom has been converted into restrooms so every floor has been shifted up temporarily,” Blum said. “The taproom is now on the first floor and the living room is on the second. The pool tables which used to be on the second floor have been sacrificed temporarily.”

At Terrace, “we had to get on our grind for these renovations because we chose to do all of the work except for the taproom tiling with our own hands,” Chong said. “Also, once somebody broke a water pipe and flooded the taproom, which sucked.”

But club presidents were confident that the renovations would offer long-term benefits for members.

At Charter, Knutson said that ShopD will be the club’s “answer to a growing demand for social space members can use on a more regular basis,” noting that members don’t have a lounge area to use on Friday nights, when the club is on tap.

“I hope that these renovations have brought a sparkle to Terrans’ eyes and demonstrated that we can, in fact, have nice things,” Chong said. “As always, we remain dedicated to the principle of Terrace for Terrans ... There will always be a plan for Terrace. Terrace is the future.”

Since the number Cap & Gown members has grown, the addition “became a necessity,” Blum said.

“Right now, we are all a little crammed, so on a basic level the project will definitely allow the membership to eat and socialize more comfortably,” she said.