UC Merced Downtown Campus Center Open for Business

Watching the work crews add some final touches to the exterior of the new UC Merced Downtown Center, a life-long Merced resident looked at the sight, and with a degree of pride said, “I’ve been here all my life.  I feel like saying ‘where did this come from’?”

School colors blue and gold adorn the entrance to the new UC Merced Downtown Campus Center.  Photo: Steve Newvine

The new thirty-three million dollar three-story  Campus Center officially opened with much fanfare on January 23.  The Center will be the workplace for three-hundred UC Merced non-academic employees. 

The building provides 67,400 square feet of office space.  It is state-of-the-art energy efficient, having earned a Gold designation from LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) from the US Green Building Council.

Open space will greet the visitor to the UC Merced Downtown Campus Center.  Photo- Steve Newvine

The new facility replaces leased space that has served the University well in the early years of operation.  With any rented office, the tenant usually modifies the existing space to fit the needs of a particular department.  

The new space was designed specifically for the departments that will use the offices.  Groups that frequently need to work together will now be down the hall, or up a level or two within the new building.

All of this gives the University greater flexibility in managing the growth of various departments.

The meeting space in the UC Merced Downtown Campus Center was designed for the specific needs of each department using the building.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

According to the UC Merced website, forty non-academic departments are being brought into the new Center.  

The departments will move according to a three-phase plan that begins immediately and ends by the summer of 2019.  

Resources from the University teaching, research, and public service departments will be integrated into the Downtown Center.  It is hoped this collaboration of University resources will help create and nurture partnerships throughout the community.

The Downtown Campus Center is direct across the street from Merced City Hall.  Photo- Steve Newvine

The Center’s location is no accident.  Directly across the street from City Hall, the facility is symbolically linked to the future of the City of Merced.  

With three-hundred new workers soon to inhabit the downtown area, there are a lot of eyes watching to see how downtown will adapt and change with this new anchor employer in place.

Already, transitions are taking place in UC leased space at the Prominade, Mondo, Castle, and Venture Lab locations.

Construction workers checking details as the final touches are being made to the UC Merced Downtown Campus Center.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

The Downtown Campus Center drives home the point that the UC is a legitimate part of the downtown Merced community.  

It always has been that way since even before the Lake Road campus opened.  

But now, with permanent office space that many would agree is a centerpiece of downtown, UC Merced has made a mark on our city.

As that lifelong Merced resident said to me as we looked at the new building, “this is truly amazing.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  

He has written California Back Roads, Stories from the Land of the Palm and the Pine.

A Couple of Chipped Mugs

We tend to do a lot of cleaning up, throwing out, and organizing in the early days of a new year.  A few found items have me recalling some happy times.

Coffee mug from the two years I spent as a television journalist at WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Alabama.  Photo- Newvine Personal Collection

Take this coffee mug with a broken handle that’s been glued back on.  

The mug shows the logo for WAAY-TV where I worked as a television journalist for two years in the early 1980s.  

Everyone who worked there got a coffee mug.  The coffee maker was in the general manager’s office.  We were told it was his way of getting to know everyone.  

If we wanted caffeine, we had to go through him.  

Those of us in the newsroom were often so anxious to get coffee, the general manager’s secretary started making announcements over the station public address line.  “Attention, the coffee is ready.”  We’d make our way to the manager’s office, say hello, and fill our mugs.

The cup went with me when I left for greener pastures.  The handle likely broke during one of several moves to new cities and new jobs.  I held on to it all these years because of the memories it generates.

My daughters got me this mug a few years ago, and I promptly dropped it creating a crack and making it useless for beverage holding.  Photo- Newvine Personal Collection

Father’s might expect a number of tee shirts, coffee mugs, or hats for Father’s Day, birthdays, or Christmas.  

I had my share of specialized gifts from my two daughters over the years.  

But this coffee mug was special as it came to me later in my life.  My daughters got it for me a few years ago, but unfortunately, it would not last long as a holder of coffee.  

I dropped it within months, rendering it useless for beverages.  But as with other broken special mugs, I repurposed it to hold pencils and it sits on my dresser.

Over the years, I have collected coffee mugs from the many places I’ve worked, cities I have visited, or as gifts from friends or relatives.  

One of my going away gifts from New York State was a ceramic mug made by a clay artist who lived in the community where we lived at the time.  I used it for a while, but now it rests in a cabinet in our foyer; it’s a memory from a very special time in my life.

I just put away Christmas tree decorations and came across a special mug featuring a photograph of our daughters from a visit to Disneyworld back in the 1980s.  

We cherished the mug so much and never used it for beverages.  It remains part of our Christmas house decorations.

There’s a mug that plays to the characteristic of northern New York winters, a mug from the farewell party of a beloved priest friend (that one includes a prayer for vocations to the religious live), and many others.  

Each mug has a special meaning for me.

But the two with the greatest emotional attachment are those two cracked cups.  Each mug holds a special place in my heart.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  

He has written California Back Roads- Stories from the land of the Palm and the Pine, available on Lulu.com