Adding to the ongoing saga of campus construction delays, the opening of the Commons has been postponed again. There is no official date set at this time.

“At this point, I really can’t provide a date,” said Lee Handley, facilities administration and planning project manager. “I don’t want to get any hopes up because we don’t know how big the issues that we need to address before we open are.”

Alan Kinkead, general manager of Sodexo dining services, hopes the first floor will open on Feb. 17, he said.

The first floor of the Commons, which will house the retail businesses, such as the bookstore, Chick-fil-A and Starbucks, also does not have an opening date.

“We are hoping that we can open Feb. 17, but that date is just what I’ve heard,” Kinkead said. “There’s still work to do before we’re ready.”

Sodexo staff still have to get the rest of our equipment in place, test the equipment, send employees to training and get their coolers up and running, he said.

“Our Starbucks employees still have to go through a two-week training, Kinkhead said. “We also need to have the health department come out and give us their blessings.”

Freshman Will Smallwood is concerned for the students who were expecting to start jobs in the Commons.

“This could put people in a bad position who were expecting jobs there,” he said. “They should tell us when they find out stuff like this.”

Junior Rashad Thompson said he believes that students and faculty have been presented with false hopes regarding the opening date, he said.

“These are just false hopes,” Thompson said. “People get excited and then let down over something that they (officials) probably knew wasn’t going to happen for a long time.”

Freshman Hallie Brown is mad the Commons is not open yet, she said.

“I’ve been looking forward to Starbucks opening because we really don’t have anything like that in Florence,” Brown said. “I’m glad they’re opening eventually, but I think it’s ridiculous that we have to wait even longer.”

Sophomore Kyle Burdges thinks the opening was delayed for the benefit of students and faculty.

“I think they’re delaying the opening to benefit us in the long run,” Burdges said. “If everything isn’t ready when they open, they’ll just end up doing maintenance and stuff with us in the building.”

Director of Student Financial Services Ben Baker and the staff are fine staying in Bibb Graves until the Commons is completely finished.

“We want them to have the building totally ready when we move to the third floor of the Commons so that it can accommodate us,” he said. “We’re happy to stay right here at our current office until the building is ready for us.”

Baker wishes that he had a firm date for when Financial Services will move to the Commons so he could let students know, he said.

“I wish we had a date to tell students,” Baker said. “We want to be available to them, so they need to know where to find us, and until I get a firm date, I can’t advertise it to them.”

Freshman Claire Clark thinks students should have been told that the Commons would not open on Feb. 1 sooner, she said.

“We pay for resources on campus, so we should be apart of the process of this building opening,” Clark said. “People were really looking forward to Starbucks and Chick-fil-A, too.”