IAB Waits And Waits

Renovations of the Indoor Athletic Building (IAB) will not be completed by the start of the 1985-86 school year.

The four million dollar overhaul of the 55-year-old building began last spring and was slated for completion by the beginning of September.

Some areas of the building will be completed by the time the fall semester starts, while others won't be ready for several weeks or months to come.

The changes included replacing all of the windows, installing a new roof, rewiring the entire building, and a placing a new mezzanine level above the smaller pool.

"We slept a little bit," Thomas R. Quinn, associate dean for facilities and maintanance, admits. Quinn and Director of Athletics John P. Reardon, Jr. '60 cited troubles with the delivery of materials, a one-month steelworkers strike, and delayed window deliveries as major causes of the postponed reopening.

The IAB, Harvard's largest athletic facility, has 128,000 square feet of floor space, two pools, a large gymnasium, nautilus and general work-out equipment, wrestling and fencing rooms, and many athletic offices.

When the work is completed, the IAB will have a completely new look. The lobby has been restored to its original arrangement with two smaller booths replacing the central monitor's room. The lobby attendant will now have to buzz students into the main facility.

"There will be much more security in the building than before," Reardon said. "We had had a lot of problems with secrity over the years."

Additionally, the building will be freshly painted and have new lights.

The old locker rooms in the building's basement have been entirely renovated and cleaned up. The locker rooms have been cut in half, leaving room for more nautilus and exercise equipment.

The huge top-floor gym has had its often leaky roof rebuilt and been painted white in an effort to make the room brighter.

The mezzanine floor will be glassed in and will provide 2500 additional square feet of floor space for dancing and aerobics classes.

Since the entire pool area cannot be painted until the mezzanine is completed, the pool will likely not reopen until December.

However, every effort is being made to allow the wrestling and fencing teams to return to the building for practice by October 1. The women's volleyball squad, the only team with games scheduled in the facility in the fall season, will have to move its matches until the gym is finished.

The delayed renovations may provide a hassle for students, but Reardon and Quinn both say that the changes were much needed.

"Basically, the building was in pretty tough shape," Reardon said