Roger Lujan, director of facilities and planning, said Monday that a new construction manager from the UNM Physical Plant will monitor the SUB construction to speed the process along.
Lujan, who spoke at a Board of Regents' Finance and Facilities Committee meeting, said that with the new manager, a new step is being made in keeping the already much-delayed Student Union Building on task.
"We're using whatever means we have contractually to get this thing done," he said.
Lujan added that the new construction manager will aid the project by providing undivided attention.
He added that he thinks the SUB construction is going a bit smoother, although it still requires much activity. Lujan said that after the SUB project, he wants to make a construction management division within the University to avert situations such as the SUB project delay.
The SUB construction was a focal point at the last committee meeting, where officials expressed their frustrations at the many obstacles the SUB construction has gone through.
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Someone who has voiced her frustrations the most, Julie Weaks Gutierrez, vice president for business and finance, said that some misunderstanding about the finish date for the SUB has cropped up.
She said that the SUB completion date is still set for April, but checking out the building has led her and other officials to think that it might not be completed until May.
"When we look at the building, we think May is when it's going to be done," she said.
Weaks Gutierrez added, however, that she is unwilling to extend the date past April, but that doesn't mean she wants the deadline met by cutting quality.
She said that the building, even now, is beautiful and will serve UNM very well, but she doesn't want "corners cut" for a speedy completion.
Larry Willard, the Board of Regents president and committee member, agrees with Weaks.
"For all our efforts, we want quality," Willard said.
Weaks Gutierrez said that litigation against the construction company would be a last resort effort, but she does not want it to come to that point.
The next full regents' meeting will be Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 1 p.m. in the Roberts Room in Scholes Hall.
