New Residence Hall

May Nix, an 81-year-old part-time meal checker at Braiden Hall,

started working at CSU in 1962.

“They used to have pig pens where Braiden is,” Nix said. “Over

where Parmelee and Corbett (halls) are they used to have quinsy

huts and married students could live in them.”

The most recent student housing plans for the university are far

from the tent-like structures that once occupied the

Parmelee/Corbett plot. They include a brand-new, four-story

residence hall located on the southwest side of campus at the

corner of Pitkin and Shields streets, just south of Edwards and

Ingersoll halls.

Nix worked as lead cook for Parmelee and Corbett halls for 18

years and retired as a food services supervisor at the Lory Student

Center. She does not understand the university’s reasoning for

building a new residence hall.

“Don’t get me started.” Nix said. “They had Alyesworth (Hall)

that used to be a perfectly good dorm… but now they are going to

put this big (residence hall) way out there.”

Despite Nix’s uncertainty, Jim Dolak, executive director of

Housing and Food Services, said construction of the new residence

hall will allow the university to tear down and renovate existing

residence halls. The first residence halls to be torn down,

following completion of the new hall, are Ellis and Newsom

Halls.

“We are building not so much because of growing population,”

Dolak said. “Really it is because of the condition of existing

halls. Students are asking for suites. We will start tearing (old

halls) down and building what students want.”

Aaron Novotny, a freshman computer science major, lives in

Newsom and agreed that the residence halls at CSU are not in very

impressive condition.

“They look pretty old, no matter where you are looking from,

inside or outside,” Novotny said. “I didn’t pick CSU because of how

the dorms looked.”

The most recent residence halls built were Westfall and Durward

halls in 1968.

When completed, the new residence hall will be 119,000 square

feet and will have double-room and single-room suite combinations,

15 wheelchair-modified rooms and two apartments.

All the rooms in the new hall will be wheelchair accessible with

wider doorways and the hall will be equipped with elevators.

Tim Moreau, a field engineer with Pinkard Construction, the

company that is building the hall, said the hall’s exterior will

have a more modern look than many of the existing halls on

campus.

“The outside will be a lot of red brick and stone,” Moreau said.

“It will look like the new Plant Science Building, but with more

brick. It should be cool.”

The interior of the new hall will provide accommodations similar

to other halls, including laundry facilities and a student

kitchen.

Yet, the new hall will not include a cafeteria, so students will

have to eat at neighboring halls.

“When we tear down Newsom and Ellis we will build a cafeteria

for that whole side of campus,” Dolak said. “The situation will be

somewhat like (the) Durrell (Center) is for the Towers.”

The single rooms in the new residence hall will be reserved

mostly for returning sophomores, while incoming freshman will

occupy the double rooms.

Still, students living in the new residence hall can expect to

pay about 10 percent more money than they would to live in any

other suite-hall because the hall is new and air-conditioned.

The new hall, which is an $18 million project, will be complete

and ready for students to move in for the fall of 2004, but it

still does not have a name.

“Right now we have no ideas,” Dolak said. “If someone would like

to give us an $18 million donation we’d be glad to put their name

on it.”