Lincoln University's food vendor on Thursday showed members of the school's student government a concept for a convenience store that could occupy the bottom floor of the university's former bookstore.
Shelly Duran, a district manager for Maryland-based vendor Sodexo Education, said a new convenience store could sell LU apparel and food and include a small fast-food restaurant.
Jerome Offord, Lincoln University's dean of student affairs, said students and alumni want a store similar to what Duran proposed.
Duran met with Lincoln University's Student Government Association on Thursday morning because students have been pushing for a store like this, Offord said. If built, the store will sell potato chips, drinks and take-out coolers filled with sandwiches available for purchase around the clock, Duran said.
"We want to go with things that you love, and we also want to make sure that we're offering a healthy option," Duran told about three dozen students at the meeting. "Anything you can imagine, we can do and will offer."
Duran said the concept includes a small bakery to make coffee, smoothies, muffins and doughnuts in the store. Some food and snacks would move from the adjacent Blue Tiger Cafe into the new store. Others, like smoothies, would be new to campus.
Sodexo's concept also includes room for a small food stand like a Pizza Hut Express for personal small pizzas, wings and pasta dishes. A Sub Connection sub shop or a sushi bar also could go in the space for the food stand.
Duran said the project is still in its earliest phase and funding has not been established yet. If the appropriate approval happens quickly over the next several months, Duran said the store could be open by spring break. If the approval process moves slower, it could be open for the start of the 2018-19 school year.
Lincoln University closed its two-floor bookstore in the Scruggs University Center at the end of June 2016 to lower the cost of books for students. The university opened an online bookstore, which made the books cheaper because the university gave up rental revenue from the bookstore vendor.
The move also freed up space on the bottom and top floors of the center. Offord told students tentative plans could turn the former bookstore's space on the top floor into meeting rooms.
"The convenience store will not be a bookstore," Offord said. "This will be all the things that were in the store, excluding the books."
After the meeting, Offord said Lincoln will open the bidding process, and Sodexo's concept was only the first proposal shown to students. While the removal of the bookstore lowered the cost of books for students, it also left students and alumni without a place on campus to buy Lincoln apparel.
"We don't have vendors like Pizza Hut on campus, so those options like that are something that they are interested in," Offord said.
The store would be open year-round and open to the public.
Offord also asked Duran to design a temporary "pop-up" store to sell apparel during homecoming until the new store is built. Local Walmart stores sell Lincoln University merchandise, but Offord said alumni and students get frustrated there's nowhere on campus to buy apparel.