New Buildings Approved for Ricks College

Ricks College’s board of trustees has approved additional physical facilities on the two-year college campus in Rexburg, Idaho, with initial planning of a new religion building to begin immediately. Planning for two additional buildings will follow.

College officials will spend the next few months determining the final plans for the religion building before contacting an architect. Ground breaking will not take place until at least April 1994.

The other physical facilities approved in concept include a new administration building and an addition to the Eliza R. Snow Center for the Performing Arts. The current administration building will be converted to library usage and will increase the school’s library facilities by more than one-third. The addition to the Snow Building will include storage and rehearsal areas and a modest-sized secured art gallery. Instructional and rehearsal space in the Snow Building has been so crowded that the college recently began using the LDS meetinghouse across the street from the campus for many of its music classes.

College president Steven D. Bennion said these “other facilities will be planned and constructed on a phased basis over the next six years through 1998.”

The new religion and administration buildings will be located south of the Manwaring Center. The addition to the Snow Building is planned for the south side of the current facility.

President Bennion emphasized that the facilities requested and approved were “to serve a student body the size of our current enrollment ceiling of 7,500 students. We do not anticipate any expansion of this ceiling.”