Construction of a federal Western Human Nutrition Research Center at the University of California, Davis, is the subject of a draft initial study recently released for public review and comment. Copies of the draft study and a proposed mitigated negative declaration are available at the reserve desk at Shields Library on campus, Yolo County Library in Davis and the Fairfield-Suisun Community Library in Fairfield. The deadline for written comment is Friday, Oct. 15. One of six such centers in the country, the Western Human Nutrition Research Center had to move from the Presidio in San Francisco because the National Park Service is planning to raze Letterman Army Institute of Research where the center has been located since 1980. About 40 center employees moved to UC Davis last April and are temporarily located in five buildings on campus. Up to 60 more employees are expected to be added after the building opens in winter 2004. The new center would be built by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on 2.4 acres of land leased from the university. The site is southeast of the intersection of Highway 113 and Hutchison Drive, along West Health Science Drive in the campus's health sciences district. The 49,000 square-foot, two- to three-story center would include office and laboratory space and a human studies area where up to 16 people could live while participating in dietary studies. A 25-space reserved parking lot would be built next to the center and another 60 new spaces would be added to an adjacent campus parking lot. The draft initial study found that the planned building is consistent with growth anticipated under UC Davis 1994 long-range development plan. Construction of the nutrition center would require changing the land-use designation of the site from parking to high-density academic and administrative use. The site had been earmarked for a future surface parking lot under the campus's long-range development plan. To accommodate future growth in health sciences, a parking deck would be added to existing parking Lot 53 instead. The USDA is expected to sign a lease for the site in November. Pending design approval by UC regents next summer, construction would begin in winter 2002. A detailed description of the project, potential environmental impacts, and information on when and where to comment on the draft initial study can be viewed on the World Wide Web at . To obtain a hard copy of the public notice, contact Laurie Hanson at (530) 752-9259.