Kacie Ross said the only reason she decided to walk around the construction site to the Reitz Union food court was because she wanted Chinese food.
The 22-year-old UF environmental science major took a bite of her lunch from Panda Express and frowned at the mention of the construction.
“I would definitely rather eat at the Hub,” Ross said.
Aside from when she craves Chinese food, Ross said she tries to avoid the Reitz Union because of construction inconvenience.
Some UF students are discovering that it’s easier to hang out at the Hub rather than battle the blockade at the Reitz Union.
But Farrah Salem, a 20-year-old sociology senior, disagreed.
Seeing longer lines and an increase of people in the Hub because of the construction, Salem said she did not mind the detour to eat at the less congested Reitz Union.
“A little bit of construction should not impact what I eat,” Salem said.
Jill Rodriguez, marketing program manager for Gator Dining Services, could not confirm if the Hub is actually seeing more traffic.
“While we have seen an increase in transactions since the P.O.D. Market opened in November 2012, the overall traffic is very comparable with this time period last year,” she wrote in an email.
Rodriguez would not confirm whether sales at the Reitz Union have declined since construction.
The renovated Reitz Union is due to be completed in Fall 2015, and the Hub’s plaza area got a minor makeover this summer.
A version of this story ran on page 5 on 10/3/2013 under the headline "Hub becoming central lunch spot"
Sedonia Steininger, a 32-year-old first-year entomology and nematology master’s student, eats lunch under an umbrella outside the Hub on Tuesday afternoon. Some students are choosing to avoid the Reitz Union because of construction.
