Shortage of Funds Leaves Some Buildings at UCI, Cal State Quake Hazards

Nearly two dozen buildings on the Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine campuses have been tagged by seismic experts as posing potentially life-threatening hazards during major earthquakes, but university officials say it will be years before they have the money to do quake-proofing.

Campus officials have known about the seismic hazards in walls and foundations since 1979. But they have delayed making repairs because of a combination of funding shortages, a push for new construction to accommodate swelling numbers of students and the logistics associated with renovation.

Officials acknowledge they are pushing their luck, but they say hundreds of millions of dollars are needed for the retrofitting, and there is only so much money to go around, especially during the state’s lingering budget crisis.

At UCI, two structures are listed as “very poor” in their ability to withstand a major quake like the one that hit Southern California last month: the central plant and dance rehearsal addition. Twelve other structures have been deemed “poor,” including the science lecture hall, library annex, fine arts administration building, art and sculpture studios and humanities office building.

Plans for strengthening four of the 14 structures--the science lecture hall, library and annex, and the central plant--are underway, but work on all the vulnerable buildings are not likely to be completed until close to the millennium.

Rebekah Gladson, UCI’s acting assistant vice chancellor, said several of the remaining retrofitting projects are scheduled to begin in fiscal year 1994-95, but it’s not a sure thing: University officials still don’t know if the state budget will allow funding.

Although critics have expressed concerns that officials at the nine UC campuses, all of which have buildings with potential earthquake hazards, have dragged their feet on the retrofitting, Gladson said UCI has taken the issue “very seriously.”

She noted that the school has conducted its own seismic studies to ensure safety, and has rehabilitated or demolished six structures that were designated potential deathtraps by the state Seismic Safety Commission in 1979.

At Cal State Fullerton, several buildings fall into the “poor” or “very poor” categories, including the school’s only library, bookstore/commons, humanities and social sciences, Langsdorf and physical education buildings and the health center.

Charles Stevens, Cal State Fullerton’s director of physical plant, said the university recently completed the design plans to reinforce the library, but “it’s a matter of finding a funding source.” No plans have been made to retrofit the remaining structures, and Stevens would not hazard a guess as to when the projects would be budgeted.

“It’s going to take $3.5 million just for our library,” Stevens said. “Obviously, we’re talking about some big dollars, and you’re going to need to set some priorities.”

Although Cal State Fullerton officials are concerned about getting the reconstruction finished, Stevens noted that the library sustained only “cosmetic damage” during the Jan. 17 Northridge quake. Still, students and library workers were not allowed in the building for several days until civil engineers examined the building and gave it a passing grade.

“Of course,” Stevens said, “the right earthquake could bring it all down.”

In the scheme of things, university officials do not view the situation as a crisis, Stevens said. If they believed students were in imminent danger, he said, “they would have been doing something about it a long time ago.”

Still, he said the damage Cal State Northridge sustained during the recent temblor has had a sobering effect. Fires broke out in science buildings on the Northridge campus, at least one parking garage collapsed and the Sierra Tower, a seven-story complex of faculty offices and classrooms, was heavily damaged.

“If somebody had told me two weeks ago that that would have happened (at Northridge), I would have said, ‘No way,’ ” Stevens said.

The buildings at UCI and Cal State Fullerton are among 188 buildings and student hangouts in the UC and California State University systems yet to be repaired despite being considered poor or very poor seismic risks. While the list was first compiled in 1979, it is only in recent years that college officials have begun significant efforts to address the potential hazards.

Lawmakers and earthquake experts have faulted college officials for being slow to act, but college officials say that isn’t the case; they say they’ve had a difficult enough time finding money in recent years just to maintain the status quo.

“The state has had a budget shortfall for years,” said Stevens from Cal State Fullerton, “and that’s been a big part of it.”

By putting off the reconstruction, Stevens said, campus officials acknowledge they are taking a gamble.

“We just went through this earthquake, and the damage was just some cracked drywall,” Stevens said. “But then tomorrow you might have one on the Inglewood fault, and it could take all of the buildings down.”

Other structures that could pose threats during earthquakes are the fine arts building at Cal State Long Beach, the John M. Pfau Library at Cal State San Bernardino and UCLA’s landmark Royce Hall.

Cal State administrators have the assistance of the state architect’s office to help monitor construction and set priorities among the 101 remaining projects on their campuses.

Of the 87 remaining projects in the UC system, 27 are scheduled to be done between now and 1996, 46 are slated to be finished by 2001 and 14 are not yet scheduled.

Times staff writer Ralph Frammolino contributed to this report.