The current condition of Gilman Hall prevents certain kinds of chemistry research from being completed in the building, but plans to add on to and renovate the 80-year-old structure remain in their infancy.

Jacob Petrich, chairman of the chemistry department said the renovation of Gilman has been made a priority by Iowa State and the Iowa Board of Regents because it isn’t meeting the demands of the chemistry department anymore.

“These facilities are very outdated,” Petrich said. “The way Gilman currently is, it is very difficult for us to compete with our peer institutes, so it’s hard to attract faculty and students.”

Some problems include temperature control, humidity and vibrations, which make it impossible to do some experiments, he said.

“It’s not acceptable in a 21st-century environment.”

The organic chemistry laboratories also pose a problem, Petrich said. They have been renovated over the years, he said, but they still don’t function the way they should. The laboratories are physically displaced from the instrument room, making lab activities difficult.

The Regents have made Gilman one of its top capital project priorities for this year.

Student Regent Jenny Rokes said it is a top priority because the chemistry department is important to Iowa State.

“Chemistry is a core class and top program at ISU, and because it accepts so many students, then it needs to be top-notch,” she said.

Iowa State is still in the early stages of planning the addition and renovation to Gilman, said Ellen Rasmussen, assistant provost at Iowa State.

“The part of the process we’re in right now is securing funding,” Rasmussen said. “We have included it in our capital request.”

She said construction would be a two-part process.

The first part would be building an addition to Gilman, and the second part would be updating the current building. How the addition would be attached to Gilman is still an open question, Petrich said.

“We’d move some things out of Gilman Hall that would be better in the new structure, which would be research [facilities],” Rasmussen said.

Petrich said he hopes the project will begin moving along quickly.

“If we wait too long we won’t be able to educate students the way we want or compete with our competition,” he said.

“We’re very excited about this project, it’s something we need to do, and we hope it will get done as quickly as possible.”

Petrich said just renovating Gilman wouldn’t help their current problems.

“Renovation would be like trying to put a new transmission in a car with 200,000 miles on it; renovation is no longer helpful,” he said.

When Gilman was completed in 1916 it was one of the largest buildings in the Midwest. Renovations have been made over the years including a new entrance in 1942 and an addition in 1965, according to the facilities planning and management Web site.

Dean Morton, university architect for facilities planning and management, said there is nothing structurally wrong with the building, but the reason it needs work is because internal facilities are not adequate for the department.

“The space isn’t ready to conduct the type of research they want to do in the future,” Morton said.

He also said that facilities planning and management is in the early stages of studying the potential size, location, cost and schedule for construction.