Firm Hired to Look at Future MAC Renovations

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 will visit potential donors this spring in an effort to raise funds for renovating the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC).

"People with a lot of money don't usually come to me," he joked last week.

And Harvard has hired HNTB Corp., the firm that built an 83,000 sq. foot recreation center for Northeastern University in 1996, to do a complete analysis of the athletic and recreational space owned by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

Jeremy R. Knowles, dean of FAS, said recently in his annual letter to the Faculty that the space analysis will likely result in a recommendation to renovate the MAC.

Lewis said a revamped MAC may be open 24 hours a day and could offer a centralized location for student group office space.

Knowles said in his letter that renovations could include adding another floor to the MAC to make more space for fitness equipment, though Lewis said it remains to be seen whether this "inter-flooring" will be physically feasible.

"I've only relatively recently authorised the survey of our aspirations for space for athletics and fitness activity, and we don't yet have a good sense of the scope of our needs and how best to satisfy them," Knowles wrote in an e-mail.

Both Knowles and Lewis concur that a revamping of the MAC would likely include moving the varsity sports teams that currently practice and compete at the MAC (volleyball, fencing and wrestling) across the river, closer to the Athletic Department.

Lewis said that adding more fitness equipment to the MAC is his first priority, and noted that there is also insufficient room for recreational activities like martial arts, dance and table tennis.

"[The MAC's] fitness facilities are inadequate," Lewis said. "There simply aren't enough stations."

On the whole, the building's 110,000 square feet, he said, are inefficiently used.

Lewis said he expects a report from HNTB next winter.

Patricia W. Henry, who is senior associate director of athletics, said the Athletic Department has not yet met with HNTB, but will do so in the next couple of weeks.

According to Henry, the department plans to work closely with FAS administrators throughout the planning process. She declined to comment further.

Lewis would not say exactly how much time he will be away from University Hall this semester to fundraise for the MAC, adding that trips to visit potential donors are nothing unusual for him--particularly in the spring, when he does not have teaching duties.

"I do fundraising all the time, and have for years, even before I became Dean," he wrote in an e-mail. "For example, I was among those who asked my former student Bill Gates to fund the construction of Maxwell Dworkin."