NIU officials are leaving options open for the space that will be vacated by future expansion to the Floor-To-Ceiling Store.

NIU has no definite plans for offices in Altgeld Hall that will be left empty when departments move to the Floor-To-Ceiling Building at 1515 W. Lincoln Hwy.

Four departments—printing, payroll, insurance and personnel services—will occupy the new office space at the Floor-To-Ceiling buildings in July of 1992.

“We are working on a plan to carefully assess the needs of the university,” said Eddie Williams, vice president of finance and planning. “There is a proven need for centrally located space, we just have to determine which departments have the most needs,” Williams said.

“People need to understand that we have a year before any department moves, so we are using this time to make a thorough decision,” he said.

“One thought we had was to restore Altgeld to its original design and taste,” Williams said. This would include moving original departments and services back to Altgeld, making it the way it originally was.

NIU bought the buildings to make available “centrally-located space for other uses,” said NIU President John La Tourette.

Employees in the departments that are moving have mixed emotions about being relocated so far from campus.

“There is no doubt we are very cramped for space,” said Ken Mundy, payroll manager. “However, we are very concerned about our services and advising for faculty, staff and students since we will be so far from central campus.”

“Students employed by the university may have to take a bus out to payroll if a problem arises with their time cards,” said Pat Hewitt, business operations. “It’s my understanding that those university services moving to the new building will increase services to accommodate students. However, this is still just in the talking stages.”

The moving of these certain departments will affect students nominally, having really no impact on students, Williams said.

Two of these departments, insurance and personnel, recently were remodeled. This remodeling included having partitions and furniture installed to make cubicles for privacy and to separate employees. “I am not sure if these dividers will come with us to the new location or not,” said Norbert Jacob, insurance manager.

NIU is spending approximately $800,000 to remodel the Floor-to-Ceiling for its uses.