The Eastern Board of Trustees unanimously voted Wednesday to lease two buildings to house the art and theater departments during the renovation and expansion of the current Doudna Fine Arts Center.

The former Wilb Walker’s East building on 18th Street will house the theater department while the former IGA/Max Market building in West Park Plaza will be home to the art department.

The buildings will be leased until Aug. 31, 2005 while construction is being done and will then be leased on a monthly need basis until the project is complete after Aug. 31.

The university will pay a total cost of $487,994 to rent the buildings as well as $412,159 for renovations to be done to the buildings.

Also at the meeting, bids totaling $5.6 million were accepted for general and specialized contractors for the construction of the new Human Services Building to be built between Klehm and Thomas halls where a parking lot is currently located.

Hannig Construction of Terre Haute, Ind. won the general construction bid and will be paid $3.5 million for their services. Bodine Electric of Decatur will handle all electrical work and TA Brinkoetter & Sons will take care of plumbing and heating for the building. Industrial Roofing of Mattoon will handle ventilation and FJ Murphy & Sons will take care of the fire protection system.

The new Human Services Building will be two stories and will house clinical services, the communications disorders and sciences department, career services, and the counseling center.

The BOT also voted for procurement card services to be provided by JP Morgan Chase of Salt Lake City, Utah. The procurement cards will make it possible for the university to make one payment each month instead of hundreds of payments to different vendors used by the university.

A vote was also passed for the hiring of Freeman United Coal Mining to supply up to about 21,5000 tons of coal to the heating plant as well as back-hauling waste, Storage Technology of Poplar Grove to purchase and install a virtual disk array, and Levi, Ray & Shoup of Springfield to purchase and install a new enterprise server for the university.