NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Senior Staff The Courtside
building of Sunset Village may close down next fall due to water
leakage problems.
By Jamie Hsiung
Daily Bruin Contributor
Courtside residents of Sunset Village will be relieved to know
that the rumors aren’t true: their home isn’t sinking
after all. But Courtside still might not be available for residency
next fall.
Due to water leakage throughout the building, Courtside is
tentatively scheduled to be closed down next fall for repairs,
housing officials said.
“Currently, Courtside is temporarily sealed, but we want
to solve this leakage problem once and for all,” said Jack
Gibbons, associate director of the Office of Residential Life.
While Courtside will likely be closed next fall, more rooms will
become available as Towers A and B of De Neve Plaza, which are
currently unoccupied, open. Michael Foraker, director of housing
and hospitality services, said there are the same amount of bed
spaces in the two De Neve buildings as in Courtside.
“We hope that we won’t need to have students moving
into the study lounges, but it’s still too early to predict
that,” Foraker said.
For the past few years, housing conditions have become more
crowded: doubles have turned into triples, and students have been
living in the residence hall study lounges. More than 100 students
currently live in study lounges, many of them awaiting the
completion of De Neve to relocate.
In fall 2003, students living in study lounges will just be a
memory, and triples will be thinned out because approximately 400
more bed spaces will be available, Gibbons said.
But that won’t happen until Courtside’s problems are
fixed. Construction workers noticed the leakages during the several
months of original construction in 1991. Caulking was used to
repair leaks, but the problem had been continuing on and off over
the past decade with temporary patches, Gibbons said.
The repairs, which may take up to nine months to complete, will
consist of removing the outside plaster, roof and windows and then
replastering the interior, a process known as
“re-skinning.”