The River Front Center – home to restaurants such as Togo’s, Hula Dog and Kung Fu Fat’s – lost $147,269 in revenue after it closed down for a week and a half to fix degraded plumbing underneath the floorboards and pump 25,000 gallons of water out from a crawlspace.

The center closed on Feb. 11 when Facilities Services discovered the water leak in a crawl space; they said the condition had gone unnoticed for months or possibly years.

Facilities Services said the center’s closing is just a part of an ongoing problem of the small maintenance budget tackling Sacramento State’s approximately $132 million worth of deferred maintenance projects.

Facilities and Utilities Director Linda Hafar said that the availability of funds for maintenance to address these types of problems, such as the degraded plumbing, is about $600,000 a year.

“In other words, our budget is only 0.4 percent of the actual need,” Hafar said. “This puts us in a situation that we can only afford to repair what breaks or comes to our attention as already broken.”

Stacy Hayano, university budget officer, said that the Chancellor’s Office provides each campus with cost increases associated with certain mandatory costs that should be built into the campus budgets. Energy costs are a mandatory cost, so campuses need to set aside funds for these increasing utility costs.

The Chancellor’s Office identified that $203,000 needed to be put into the 2008-09 campus budget for Facilities and Utilities, was added to the existing campus budget of $3,773,000.

Hayano said that the Chancellor’s Office did not identify any amounts to the CSU campuses to set aside for deferred maintenance in the 2008-09 budget, so no additional budget was allocated to Facilities Services.

“Some of the buildings on our campus have been in existence for at least 30 years, and as much as 60 years, and need more work than the CSU or the campus is able to fund,” Hayano said.

Hafar said that state funding hasn’t kept up with maintenance needs on campus.

“We’re in the terrible position of having to react, not prevent,” Hafar said.

Facilities Services Associate Vice President Ronald Richardson said that the budget is cut down every year and hopes the deferred maintenance costs holds steady, but can’t be paid off with the current 600,000 per year for maintenance.

“Even at that rate, we’ll never catch up. We’ll always be behind,” Richardson said.

Richardson said that problems such as the River Front Center plumbing are the ones that the office has the most trouble finding because they couldn’t see how bad it was until they saw the degraded plumbing.

“We keep up with roof replacements because they’re out in the open,” Richardson said.

Hafar said that Facilities Services was not aware of any problems until there were complaints about a bad smell in the building.

Hafar said that Facilities Services routinely inspects and maintains approximately 2 million square feet of building space on campus, not including the Hornet Stadium or the three parking structures.

She said the frequency of inspections depends upon the type of equipment or system being maintained. There are 49 positions that perform maintenance or inspections on the buildings.

In the case of the River Front Center, Hafar said that a certified industrial hygienist first inspected the area to evaluate hazards and conducted training for those who were to enter the crawlspace. Then, the water removal contractor pumped out all the standing water. Finally, the plumbing contractor removed all the degraded drain lines and replaced them with new ones.

The crawl space is large and has segmented chambers. The contractor pumped out about 25,000 gallons of water from six different chambers.

“The contractors have been very resourceful. They are familiar with performing this type of work and have done an excellent job,” Hafar said.

Hafar said that utilities don’t know how the cost is going to be paid yet, but suggested emergency reserves.

According to the Reserves Interim Policy, emergency reserves can be used as a funding source for emergency repairs or replacements.

“If there are no reserves, then we will have to delay some other repair to another year,” Hafar said.

Hafar does not know of any other failings in the center’s building.

“Some systems were turned off during the repairs to avoid more water intrusion,” Hafar said. The systems will be turned back on and checked to see if they are operating properly.”

The River Front Center’s repairs on the wastewater leak were completed mid-afternoon on Feb. 24.

The center reopened on Feb. 26, and employees were ready to get back to work at the center.

Shana King, a Togo’s employee, worked in helping getting the restaurant ready the day before the center reopened, and felt glad that Togo’s was opening again.

Marquita Griffin, a freshman pre-nursing major, said that she’s happy the center reopened because she had to walk to the University Union to eat at Burger King instead.

Jennifer Healey, a sophomore and Draper’s Hall resident, goes to Togo’s once a week because it’s convenient for her to walk to, whereas before she walked across campus to buy food when the center closed.

“Nobody wants to walk across campus to get Subway,” Healey said.

Freshman Sequoia Mott said that she was mad that the center closed, but returned immediately to eat at Togo’s after it reopened.

Freshman Christopher Sarmiento said that he prefers going to a food place such as the center to study because it smells good and is more entertaining than the library.

“I meet up with people there. It’s a hangout spot,” Sarmiento said.

Despite the long closing, the center has found alternatives to keep their employees working.

Celexsy Adame, marketing services director for University Enterprises, Inc., said that no employees were laid off, but the center’s eateries, Kung Fu Fat’s and Gordito Burrito, sent employees to their alternative locations in the University Union. Hula Dog set up a trailer near Eureka Hall.

Miyagi and Mego were not able to continue business operations during the repairs.

“Togo’s is a franchise of University Enterprises, and we were able to send our full-time employees to other units on campus, such as the Dining Commons and University Catering,” Adame said.

Hafar estimated that the center has accumulated $5.12 million in deferred maintenance, and will cost $90,000 to fix the degraded plumbing.

Adame said the businesses are coping, but it was a sad time for all involved.

“The students, faculty and staff deserve the full array of restaurants on campus, and we are delighted to be able to serve the campus community in full swing this week,” Adame said.

Catherine Robledo can be reached at [email protected].