Carey Hall closed until 2020 due to low enrollment
The doors to Carey Hall in the Towers Complex are closed. The building is undergoing renovations and will reopen in fall 2020.
Carey Hall in the Towers Complex has been closed to undergo renovations because of low enrollment and will reopen in the 2020 fall semester.
Due to a lack of students enrolled, the building showed vacancies between dorm rooms of the hall. Renovations for residential halls usually take place during the summer, however Residence Life decided to take advantage of the opportunity in the 2019-20 fall and spring semesters.
“We know that when students are really far spread out and if there are lots of room vacancies on a floor, it’s really hard to connect with people… and that’s just not the experience we want our students to have,” Director of Residence Life Kathleen Gardner said.
The decision to close Carey Hall caused 65 students to relocate. Residence Life started to contact students asking them to relocate on Friday, July 5 and finished Thursday, July 11.
The students being moved were given the option to relocate to "similar first year halls" and stay with their roommates if they chose to, Gardner said. These students took some priority since they were being dislocated, and Gardner said she feels like most students were accommodated in the process.
Residence Life personnel also had to relocate. Students working as Resident Assistants were reassigned with the same or similar positions at a different building.
The department waited until they received all of the information and were positive they were doing the project. After it was confirmed, the Towers community’s Assistant Director of Residence Life reached out to student personnel and other paraprofessional staff about what was happening to start reassignment.
The students working did not lose their scholarships because of this decision; however, Gardner said she realizes the switch can be difficult if the student already has made ties with the building's other staff members.
Along with Carey Hall, certain floors of the buildings in the Towers Complex were also taken offline. The other floors taken offline could not be disclosed for security reasons, Gardner said. Hiring for this semester was adjusted in spring 2019, as Residence Life saw the potential that floors could be closed and planned accordingly. The staff for Carey Hall was the only staff that had to be relocated.
As for Residence Hall Directors, they are assigned one hall and receive additional compensation if they choose to take on another hall. These directors are made aware that their ability to have two halls is based from year to year, so no staff member lost their job due to Carey being offline.
Ideas for what is expected from Carey have not been decided yet. Gardner hopes to have a better understanding of what is to be expected in October.
As of right now, a request for a feasibility study to Facilities Management has been put in as a way to see what can be accomplished with the department’s budget. Facilities management then assigns a property manager to the hall and this person figures out a price for a project.
There are multiple possibilities for what can come of Carey Hall, however the department has to wait until they receive feedback from Facilities Management to know what is in their budget.
Some renovations will fall under preventative maintenance, while other renovations have to be determined as either necessities or wants. From these lists, the project manager has to decide what tasks are most important to complete first.
With the renovation taking place during the 2019-2020 fall and spring semesters, there is more time to complete more work on the hall.
One possible idea for Carey Hall is to change the entire building’s layout to fit a two person room style, where two people would share a bathroom instead of four. The building would house 163 people if it used this layout, Gardner said.
“One of the things we’re trying to do is really working at looking at different opportunities to make housing fit into different people’s budgets... providing more students options,” Executive Director of Auxiliary Services Cal Seelye said.
Other new features of the building could involve new light fixtures, furniture, or flooring.
When it comes to dealing with necessities, Facilities Management might be able to help guide the department in targeting some key features based on records they keep. Facilities Management can focus efforts on rooms which had lots of maintenance requests to maximize the amount of repairs done with the allotted budget, Seelye said.
