(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State University is moving ahead with plans to renovate the Scheman Building after getting approval from the Board of Regents. The I-S-U athletic department oversees its operation as part of the Iowa State Center complex I-S-U’s Shawn Norman says Scheman has gotten a lot of use through the years. “This is a 48 year old building has thousands of people come through for events. And one thing that we want to do in this project is the renovation of the first and the second floor,” Norman says. He says they will upgrade the lobby, restrooms, entrances, lighting and food and beverage amenities.

“But the one big thing is the Benton Auditorium space, we want to make that a flexible event space that we can have these people that come in these visitors that visit our museums in our athletic events,” he says. Norman says they also want to improve the link to other facilities. “We want to elevate the walkway between the Seaman Building and the Hilton Coliseum. But we want that to be evaluated during the process to see if there’s any repairs that are needed. So this would not have anybody having to move out…so everybody, everything would be good in that instance,” Norman says. “…our estimated budget is about ten to 12 million dollars at this point. So funded by athletic operating revenues.”

Norman says they won’t know how long the renovations will take until they get estimates back from the designers.