Think the Market is overcrowded over your noon hour?

Tired of waltzing all the way downstairs to see what the UPC is up to this week?

Volstorff Ballroom just not big enough for your spiffy annual events?

Well, dear reader, you are in luck! With a new set of plans for the new University Student Union reviewed by campus groups last week, SDSU is one step closer to righting whatever wrongs the current facility has.

But, that step forward will come with a few obstacles, chief among them the need to relocate nearly all the services currently offered by the Union during the construction process.

Believe us, we aren’t looking forward to picking up the Collegian shop and hauling it to some basement classroom across campus.

Leaving our humble home, complete with computers, archive files and a schnazzy couch, behind will make putting together a publication every week even more of a challenge, plus manual labor just doesn’t become us.

But more worrisome than the inconvenience to the Collegian, — and believe us, it’s hard to admit that there are things more important than that — is the inconvenience to the general student population that relies on the campus’ central facility for everything ranging from food to social interaction.

The inconvenience to the large conferences that pay to use the facility must also be considered.

Before they completely sign off on the plan to move the union expansion plan ahead on a fast track, rather than on a slower track that wouldn’t require complete shutdown of the facility, union officials need to have answers to the many questions that will come from all directions.

They also need to be ready to put in the extra effort that will be required on their part to make the transtitional period as accomodating as possible.

But that extra effort seems to be one worth making for the benefits an expanded Student Union will bring. We’ve seen the plans, and golly are they neat!

An expansive ground-level ballroom will offer the opportunity for hosting gala events the likes of which SDSU hasn’t seen in past years.

New, more open views throughout the Market and surrounding area will make the building as a whole feel even more expansive than the actual larger size will make it.

Larger office and meeting spaces will bring the facility up to a level more appropriate to the current campus population.

Heck, maybe we’ll even get the UPC office once they move upstairs with the rest of the cool people on campus.

Send comments and thoughts to [email protected].