Workers walk past a door in the multistory atrium of the Charles P. Gallagher Student Center. (Glenn Hartong photos) | ZOOM |

        Dominated by a multi-story atrium, Xavier University's new student center is taking shape on the Evanston campus.

        The $18 million facility will house a food court, a 350-seat theater/performing arts center and office space for myriad groups, and be named the Charles P. Gallagher Student Center.

        Built on the site of the razed 1965 student center on the academic mall, it is to open in March.

        Mr. Gallagher, a 1960 Xavier graduate and Denver-based entrepreneur, matched $9 million XU raised for the facility during the recently completed Century Campaign.

        “This building will be the final missing link in the renaissance of the Xavier campus,” Mr. Gallagher said early in the construction. “We need a state-of-the-art building for students, a center that responds to all campus needs 24 hours a day.”

        “It's a great building,” he said recently. “It's going to change Xavier.”

Artist rendering of the student center. | ZOOM |

        In his day, it was a men's commuter school; today, XU is a coeducational university where most freshmen and almost half of the school's 4,000 undergraduates live on campus.

        Some are there because of Mr. Gallagher's “Pacesetter” program, where he sends talented youngsters through private junior high and high school and XU at his expense if they keep up their grades.

        The program began in his hometown, Toledo, and XU is asking alumni chapters around the country to develop similar efforts.

New clock tower under construction. | ZOOM |

        The Gallagher Center's brick and stone-like concrete exterior captures some of the architecture of XU's early buildings plus a glass-and-steel clock tower unlike anything else on the campus.

        The old center had two floors below ground; the Gallagher Center has one. Every room in the top three floors is airy, lighted by large windows, with a view of the campus or nearby neighborhoods.

        The design received mixed reviews from students walking past it recently.

        “I don't like the architecture,” said Peter Barrett, 24, of Hyde Park, a senior in English. “It doesn't seem to blend in. Sometimes architects can think too much of themselves.”

        He liked the old center but conceded that “all of the improvements that they have made at Xavier have been really good.”

        Sociology freshman Angela Wil son, 19, of Akron, said the Gallagher Center fits in with its classic brick look.

        “I like it. I can't wait until gets done. I'm very excited.”

        She's looking forward to the expansive new bookstore and “more places to eat.”

        Alejandro Ramirez, 23, an economics graduate of Mexico City's Pan American University studying English at XU, marveled at the speed with which construction is proceeding, compared to what he would have expected at home.

        “It's beautiful,” he said, adding, with regret, “I would like to see it finished but I leave in December.”

        Many of the center's spaces — including a cyber cafe — will be wired for computers.

        Other recent construction projects include new dorms, the multipurpose Cintas Center, redesign of the academic mall and refurbishing of the original campus buildings.

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