Although making the Holmes Student Center completely accessible to the handicapped will have to progress in “increments,” Student Association President Paula Radtke said she is determined to see the project through.

“It will take time, but within five years if this building (the student center) is handicapped accessible, it will be well worth it,” she said.

Discussion about making the lower level of the student center accessible to the handicapped arose during a Student Services and Activities Space Study Committee, but the committee determined that the matter needed to be explored elsewhere.

Handicapped students currently can enter the student center only through the Pow Wow Room, and they do not have access to the student center’s lower level which contains the Students’ Legal Assistance Office and the Campus Activities Board.

The project will be accomplished in phases because of lack of funding, Radtke said.

It has not been determined where the money will come from to fund the project, Radtke said. No estimates are available as to how much will be needed to make the center accessible to the handicapped because it has not been decided what the project will include.

Radtke said she and Patricia Hewitt, vice president for business and operations, have found an architect with experience in making buildings accessible to the handicapped who they would like to analyze the center.

The architect would assess the needs of the center and make his own recommendations, Radtke said.

When the student center’s accessibility was discussed by the committee, suggestions were made about installing an elevator or a key-operated stair lift near the Sandburg Auditorium.

The stairlift proposal suggested by Radtke would allow students in wheelchairs to travel along the stairs without having to get out of their wheelchairs.

The installation of a stairlift would cost between $50,000 and $80,000, and Radtke later determined handicapped students would not use stairlifts because they do not feel safe on them.

Radtke said she and Hewitt have not obtained information about installing another elevator to make the lower level of the student center accessible, but they will continue to examine alternatives to a stairlift.