The Market Place at Perry reopened for business on Aug. 18 after three and a half months of renovations.
Executive food service director Jason Nall said Aramark’s renovation plans focused on maintaining the integrity and history of the building.
“[Perry] has so much history with the university and the city of Starkville,” he said. “We wanted to modernize it and bring it up to date while at the same time provide a new, exciting dining experience for our students.”
Assistant vice president for student affairs Bill Broyles said Mississippi State University officials are pleased with how the renovations turned out.
“It amazes me that we were able to add 100 more seats in this facility,” he said. “It just feels more comfortable in [Perry] now than it did.”
Vice president for student affairs Bill Kibler said the installation of new tables, chairs and dining spaces allows students to use the Market Place in a new, dynamic way.
“[Previously] we had all the same size tables, all the same kind of chairs,” he said. “[The current layout] creates more diversity, whether you want to sit on a stool, sit in a chair or sit in a booth. You can even sit on a couch in front of the two TVs.”
Broyles said the menu has expanded along with the seating capacity.
“One of the things we heard a lot was we didn’t offer enough vegetarian options,” he said. “Now we actually have a vegan cooking station.”
Nall said new options for food were implemented due to growing student requests.
“We had some comments that they wanted to see more comfort food,” he said. “A majority of our students are familiar with southern foods so we are trying to make that a theme at our home station.”
Kibler said the renovations cost approximately $1.6 million. Aramark primarily supplied funds for the improvements.
“This was part of the renovations that Aramark agreed to do as part of their contract when they came on board as our dining services contractor last summer,” he said. “They agreed to do $4 million worth of renovations on the campus, which they started immediately.”
The Perry renovation was the last of Aramark’s on-campus construction projects, which included Einstein Brothers, Burger King and the food court in Colvard Student Union.
“There wasn’t enough money left for them to do all the things we had envisioned that we wanted to do in Perry in the beginning,” Kibler said. “There was about a million dollars left in the budget so the university reached an agreement with Aramark for them to go ahead while they were renovating the building and do all the things that we wanted to do, and the university will fund the other $600,000 of the project.”
Kibler said the commissions MSU receives from dining services will pay for the $600,000, pending approval by the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning.
“We reached an agreement with them that we will have six years to pay back the $600,000,” he said. International business sophomore Justin Glover was pleased with the cafeteria’s new look.
“I feel like they have totally revitalized the cafeteria,” he said. “I really think I’m getting my money’s worth now.”