Rieber dining hall closes for large-scale renovation

Rieber dining hall closed for a $6 million renovation on Thursday, and will not be open again until winter quarter 2011.

The dining hall is being remodelled as part of a larger goal to bring more and better-quality dining to the residential Hill, said Pete Angelis, assistant vice chancellor of Housing and Hospitality Services.

“This dining commons hasn’t been remodelled in many, many years,” Angelis said.

Rieber was the main dining hall for the residents of Rieber Court, which currently houses about 1,400 students, according to the Office of Residential Life Web site.

“It’s inconvenient because it was the closest place to all of us,” said Rieber Terrace resident and second-year communication studies student Patricia Lee.

First-year undeclared student Meg Batavia, also a resident of Rieber Terrace, said she will be unaffected by the dining hall’s absence.

“I don’t really care (that it is closing),” Batavia said. “I prefer the other dining halls.”

Preparation for the construction will begin today as equipment and furniture are cleared out, Angelis said. The bid for construction will go out on March 9, and work on the dining hall will begin immediately after that.

Angelis said he anticipates the construction cost to drop significantly because there will be competition among contractors.

Once remodeled, the new Rieber dining hall is expected to be as different from the current facility as the soon-to-open Café 1919 is from Puzzles Café, Angelis said.

“It is a complete gut of this dining commons to improve customer flow,” he said.

Angelis said the timing was planned in conjunction with the opening of Café 1919, so some staff will be redeployed to Café 1919 and the rest will be worked into the Hedrick, De Neve and Covel dining halls.

“We’ve been holding back on hiring for the other dining halls in fall so we’d have place for the Rieber employees,” Angelis said.