Tech’s student competition teams located in the Mechanical Engineering Research Building were notified in early Aug. that they would be relocated to a new facility on 14th Street. Commonly known as the Tin Building building, the building will be demolished in April as a part of the Institute’s move for more green space on campus.
The new building on 14th Street, currently named the Competition Center, is a building that is owned by Tech and was previously used as storage for Housing materials and other campus property. The competition teams were required to move out of the building before the start of the Spring semester due to construction and modifications to the Skiles walkway area.
According to Andrea Kuklenyik, Vice President of Wrek Racing and second-year ME major, a decision had to be made by the Institute to either bring the old Tin Building up to code, or tear it down and move the organizations within it.
“We found out that the final decision had been made after [Institute] President G.P. ‘Bud’ Peterson met with the respective presidents of the teams housed with in the Tin Building and informed them that they could use this situation to their benefit, and this could be a growing point for the teams,” Kuklenyik said.
This shift will have an effect on a number of organizations that were housed in the building, including Wrek Racing, GT Motorsports, GT Off Road, EcoCar, Solar Jackets and RoboJackets. The effect will vary greatly from organization to organization, based on their space, mechanical and recruitment needs.
“This move will have both a negative and positive effect on our organization, as we now have much more space and amenities, but at the same time it makes it very difficult for our members to come work with the team—the new buildling on 14th Street is far from campus,” said Luis Romero, President of GT Motorsports and fourth-year ME major.
The distance that the new building is from campus has caused the leaders in these organizations to become concerned about possible recruitment in the coming years, and the logistics of younger team members travelling to the building to work.
“We are a little worried that it is going to be somewhat of an issue to recruit kids next year and then get them to come through Home Park to get here—its not like you can just drop by the shop on your way back from the library,” said Jonathan Skoczylas, member of GT Motorsports and third-year ME major.
According to Kuklenyik, Tech paid for all of the moving costs and allowed organizations the use of institute vehicles, but the other machines and equipment that could not be moved individually and had to be moved by professional movers. Moving forward, the organizations involved are still in process of organizing all of their materials.
“We are still working on moving everything in and getting situated — it’s a lot of stuff to move around, and now that we have so much space, there is a lot to unpack. We’re definitely glad to be out of a building that sounds like its about to fall down all the time,” Skoczylas said.