House Kitchens May Merge

Harvard is considering a plan to combine the Eliot and Kirkland House kitchens in order to create additional dining space and make food service more efficient, College officials said this week.

If the proposal is approved, a joint kitchen would be built in the area between the two houses that is currently occupied by a narrow staircase and walkway, said Director of Food Services Frank J. Weissbecker.

Both dining halls would continue to get their food from the central kitchen, but the two existing support kitchens would be combined into one and the old kitchens would be used for the service lines, Weissbecker said.

The design for the plan is nearly complete, and contractors soon will be invited to bid on the project, according to Associate Dean of the College Martha C. Gefter.

If the University decides that it can afford to create the new kitchen, construction will begin this spring and most of the work would be done over this summer, she said.

The construction would help both students and Food Services, officials said. "It's more efficient with one kitchen and one dishwashing facility," said Assistant Director of Food Services Benjamin H. Walcott. "It gets the serving line out of the Kirkland House dining room, [creating] more seating capacity for students," he added.

The proposal also calls for replacing old cooking equipment and enlarging the Eliot House serving area, Walcott said.

Harvard has been discussing combining the two kitchens for more than 10 years. "We thought [the plan] was going to go somewhere three years ago," Gefter said. However, the design created then was estimated to cost twice as much as the University was willing to pay, she said.

University officials said this prop- osal has a good chance of passage. "I think itis very likely [the plan] will pass," Dean of theCollege L. Fred Jewett '57 said.

"I'm optimistic because there are a lot ofinterested parties," Weissbecker said