CSUN RECEIVES GRANT : FUNDS TO HELP CAMPUS COMPLETE QUAKE REPAIRS.

Byline: Steven J. Gorman Daily News Staff Writer

Flush with $61 million in newly approved federal disaster aid, Cal State Northridge officials said Thursday that they are set to begin a final two-year push to overhaul the earthquake-damaged campus after a 10-month lull in restoration work.

The flurry of renovations, along with construction of a new state-of-the-art utility plant and other campus improvements, will leave CSUN in far better shape than it was before the devastating Jan. 17, 1994, Northridge Earthquake, school officials said.

``CSUN will stand among the most modern, safe and thoroughly up-to-date campuses in the nation,'' campus President Blenda Wilson said at an outdoor ceremony announcing the recovery initiative and the $61 million federal grant.

She spoke in front of the five-story Sierra Tower faculty office building, one of several structures left uninhabitable by the earthquake, and one of the first slated to undergo repairs this summer.

From the clock at the top of the tower, construction workers unfurled a giant purple banner emblazoned with the words: ``Time to Shine.''

CSUN officials also announced that the campus received $13 million in recovery assistance two weeks ago from the state Office of Emergency Services.

The latest allotments of disaster aid - most of it from the Federal Emergency Management Agency - bring to nearly $275 million the amount of public money approved to date for repair projects on the 368-acre campus.

Campus officials said they expect the work to be completed, and the last temporary classrooms removed, in two years.

FEMA's coordinating officer for the Northridge Quake, Leland Wilson, promised his agency's continued support of campus recovery efforts.

``FEMA will not leave until the last temporary classroom is taken off campus and you're back in,'' he said.

Continuing the high profile the Clinton administration has taken in the Northridge Earthquake recovery effort, deputy White House assistant John Emmerson attended CSUN's announcement Thursday.

Emmerson, chairman of the government's Northridge Earthquake recovery task force and Clinton's California campaign manager in 1992, said he was impressed ``to see how far you all have come in the two years and six months since this university truly stood at ground zero of one of the most damaging and devastating earthquakes in the nation's history.''

Vice President Al Gore toured the campus a few months after the quake, and President Clinton visited on the first anniversary of the quake last year.

Campus reconstruction will resume in earnest in the next few weeks with the start of renovations to the Engineering Building, the Sierra Tower and an adjacent faculty office building called Jerome Richfield Hall, said Randall Duncan, head of the construction management team overseeing the project.

Asbestos removal work already is under way on all three structures and repairs were begun earlier this year to a science building, which was left mostly closed by the quake, he said.

The vacancy of Sierra Tower and Richfield Hall account for the lion's share of the dozens of trailers and dome-shape temporary quarters that now provide office space for faculty, he said.

Renovations are slated to begin on the wings of the Oviatt Library by late summer and on the administration building by fall, Duncan said.

For two other buildings closed since the quake - the fine arts complex and the south library - engineers are awaiting the results of tests to determine whether the existing structures can be repaired or whether they need to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, he said.

Besides asbestos removal, improvements include better access for the handicapped and enhanced telecommunications facilities, campus officials said.

In addition, the campus is using state funds to begin construction next week of a $22 million central heating and cooling facility to replace the campus's aging steam boiler plant.

The new plant is expected to take about two years to build and will reduce CSUN's energy costs by about $500,000 a year.

CSUN also is working on a plan to beautify the university and to improve parking and traffic flow through the commuter-oriented campus, said campus spokesman Bruce Erickson. Many of those improvements will await the completion of earthquake repairs.

Reconstruction of the shattered campus moved quickly in the first year following the quake, but ground to a virtual standstill in mid-1995 amid wrangling between the university and FEMA over documentation of damage claims.

But since early this year, CSUN has made marked progress in securing additional FEMA assistance under a new quake recovery team led by Art Elbert, the university's administration and finance vice president.

FEMA approved $8 million in construction costs in February and $26 million more in April, Elbert said.

The check presented by FEMA on Thursday nearly rounds out the federal government's commitment to assume 90 percent of the $300 million campus restoration effort. The state is expected to kick in an additional $17 million to meet its 10 percent share, Elbert said.

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PHOTO (color) Blenda Wilson

Says campus will be safer