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.”
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