Photo: Johnny Hanson, For The Chronicle Photo: Courtesy Of UH Media Relations / University Of Houston Photo: Courtesy Of UH Media Relations / University Of Houston

The University of Houston wants $60 million from the state to help replace the aging and flood-prone building that houses the law school.

UH has already raised $10 million in a campaign to build a new and improved law center, and is now seeking state support for the second phase of construction, university President Renu Khator said.

A new five-story building will replace the Bates Law Building which was constructed in 1969 and houses the University of Houston Law Center, according to a release from UH.

Khator said more than half of the current law center is underground, making it prone to flooding. The building has never fully recovered from severe flooding from Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, and more recently, Hurricanes Ike and Harvey, rendered a large portion of its library unusable, the release stated.

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Every institution has at least one special project they want to get funded by the State Legislature, Khator said in a meeting with the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board on Monday.

“We are committed to providing the best learning environment for our students and faculty to spur success and this includes upgrading facilities throughout campus,” Khator said in a statement released about the $10 million UH has already raised.

The $10 million came principally from UH law alumni and corporate matching gifts. Of the donations, $2 million came from the Law Foundation, according to a UH Law Center spokeswoman. The remaining $8 million was raised from individual alumni donors.

“The UH Law Center continues to be nationally recognized, despite challenges with its facility,” Khator said. “Just imagine what can be accomplished with a modern building equipped with the latest technology.”

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Leonard M. Baynes, dean of the university's law center, reiterated that thought. “A world-class law school in a world-class city requires a world-class building,” he said. “A new law center building will transform the learning experience of our students. It will also elevate our standing in the legal community by better reflecting the true excellence of our faculty, students, alumni and staff.”

Allison, Ike and Harvey

Amanda Watson, assistant professor of law and director of the O’Quinn Law Library at UH Law Center, said she too is a big proponent of rebuilding the law center and giving students “the space they deserve and a space that's fitting to our ranking.”

Watson, who began working at the law center’s library a week before Hurricane Harvey swept through the Houston area in 2017, said a lot of people claim that the law center didn’t get much damage during the storm, but “what’s not understood is we were never really able to recover from [Tropical Storm] Allison.”

After the 2001 storm, the library’s space was cut in half, with much of it deemed unfit to store books, Watson said. The library lost about $40 million worth of the library’s collection, some of which was not replaceable, and the remaining books were squeezed onto one floor.

Student organizations now exist on the other floor, “but it’s concrete floors, temporary walls. You can’t get [good] cell service,” which to many students is an inconvenience, Watson said. And even now when it rains, the law center has to use buckets to catch leaking water.

“There have been people who have come to figure out how to fix [these] problems. … but there’s no real way to solve it when you’re an underground building,” she said.

W. Henry Legg, a third-year law student at UH and the editor-in-chief of the Houston Law Review, said that although the law center building has grown on him, the modern designs and proposals for a new UH Law Center are much needed.

“You don’t come to the [law] school for facilities by any means,” Legg said. “I spend a lot of time here reading and studying … A lot of people describe our building as a bunker, and I definitely agree with that,” he said, adding that the facility could be more accessible and open, with more windows.

Baynes said the new building is slated to have major improvements that will alleviate many of the law center’s enduring concerns.

New features

The current law center is composed of four buildings, but the new facility will be one building that will boast modern technology and flexible space for students and faculty, UH officials said. All services will be centralized and easy to find, including faculty, who will be accessible on the first floor, Baynes said on Wednesday. On Thursday, a UH Law Center spokeswoman clarified that faculty will also be located on other floors.

The first floor will also be home to new courtroom and parliament-style classrooms, an event space for hosting speakers and guests, a security desk and lobby where people can ask questions and get directions, and a clinical space, where pro bono legal services will be offered to the community.

Instead of underground, the library will be on the new building’s top two floors.

Construction is set to begin in 2021.

Baynes said the new building’s preliminary concept was made with their law students in mind, many whom are commuters or students who prefer to stay at the center to work and study due to convenience. Others, he said, don’t always have a quiet place to study.

“They need a place where they can feel comfortable, that allows them places to study, that they can identify with, and have some pride in because they’re using the building not just to attend class,” Baynes said.

The new building, he said, is about “making sure they have the best opportunity to have the best legal education that they can possibly have,” Baynes said.

Legg, who saw the renderings a couple months ago, said he’s enthusiastic about the building’s potential new look, even though he’ll graduate before construction starts.

“It’s definitely going to increase their experience,” Legg said of students who will work and study in the new law center. “It’s going to give them more reason to stay on campus and stay at school,” especially with the additional amenities, he said.

“I hope it’s successful,” he said of the university’s proposal. “And I hope the legislature gives them money.”

William Jackson, president of the UH Law Foundation and chair of the building campaign, said in a statement that he hopes the $10 million raised will prove to state lawmakers that there is ample support for the law center, which has ranked in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of Top 10 law schools for specialties like health law, intellectual property law and part-time law.

UH’s $60 million ask for the law center will be in addition to the university’s other special item requests to legislators, including a request for about $11.1 million to help support various aspects of the university, and $20 million for the proposed University of Houston College of Medicine, which is slated to expand the university’s health research and prepare primary care doctors to practice in underserved and rural communities, including the Third Ward where UH is located.

brittany.britto@chron.com

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