Construction will begin in the spring on a $5.7 million renovation of Beardshear Hall, primarily to expand the Student Answer Center on the ground floor.

Iowa State Registrar Kathy Jones said the new design for Beardshear Hall is based partly on feedback students have given to the answer center, an information booth located on the ground floor.

Piloted last August, the Student Answer Center was designed to provide facts about ISU to students, faculty and visitors.

The answer center’s success is one of the reasons for making it the main focus of the building’s renovations.

“Beardshear Hall is not the easiest place to navigate,” Jones said. “The answer center is a friendly face to greet students.”

Steve Prater, ISU architectural design project manager, said the renovation will be done in three phases and last about 18 months.

The second and third floor office spaces will be updated, but Beardshear’s ground floor will get the biggest makeover.

“Right now it’s a dungeon,” he said. “We want to make the whole ground floor more student oriented.”

Prater said another major focus of the renovation is to consolidate Beardshear’s student services and make the offices in the building seem more accessible.

Many of the current walls and doors on the ground floor will be replaced with glass to give the building a more open feel, Jones said.

There also are plans to move the ISU card offices to Beardshear’s ground floor.

“It’s not there now, and it should be,” she said.

Staff at the center answered more than 20,000 questions this past year, Jones said.

“The answer center has helped make Beardshear Hall less intimidating,” she said. “We want Beardshear to be an inviting place — we want it to be a place where students feel welcome.”