University officials announced Sunday that they will close and demolish Hamlin Hall after this semester due to safety concerns and overall poor living conditions.
Director of Housing and Residence Life Ann Bailey told Hamlin residents that problems with the heating, air conditioning and plumbing and deteriorating facades of concrete walkways prompted the decision.
“It is not what students desire from a living standpoint,” Bailey said.
Students who were planning to live in Hamlin in the fall will choose other upperclassmen residence halls or live off-campus.
The female residence hall, constructed in 1966, was scheduled to be vacated in 2006, but an evaluation from an appointed structural engineer showed the need is more pressing than first thought. Although the engineer has not submitted his final report, he did confirm that the problem is urgent.
“The report is not going to say the building is going to fall down tomorrow or next year,” assistant director of maintenance and facilities Fred Mock said. “We just had to be rock solid on the safety of it.”
Mock said the main safety concerns stem from the deteriorating concrete facades of the walkways. Small pieces have begun breaking off, Mock said, but do not yet pose serious threats. Soon, however, larger pieces could begin breaking away and fall from as high as seven stories, injuring someone.
“It is going to get worse,” Mock said. “More and more is going to fall off.”
“We want to do this for (residents’) safety, but the building isn’t going to fall down tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t want to needlessly alarm residents.”
Hamlin Hall has been fraught with problems recently. A memorandum sent to Hamlin residents said that more maintenance requests were filed there than at any other dorm.
Marnie Volkenant-Meurer, assistant director for assignments, contracts and billing, said occupancy in Hamlin is well below average for residence halls. The hall can accommodate over 400 women but currently houses only 192.
In 2002, school officials vacated the sixth and seventh floors of the building after an infestation of brown bats was discovered between the walls of the two floors.
“We have bad plumbing, bad air conditioning-it’s below level, not even average,” junior Hamlin resident Rheda Roberts said. “Last week the shower kept overflowing; last semester we had a leaky toilet and a bad sink.”
“Last semester we had a real problem with bats,” Roberts added. “They would fly into the suites-we had to leave the lights out at night.”
Bailey said all of these factors led her, Mock and Vice President of Student Affairs Jimmy Abraham to pull the plug on the ailing building.
Hamlin Hall will not be reconstructed, Bailey said, nor will another building be built in its place. Instead, as part of 2003’s Campus Master Plan detailing proposed campus growth for the next 20 years, a “ring road” will built in the hall’s stead. The section of the ring road that will be built in Hamlin’s present location will connect Coliseum Boulevard to East Lee Boulevard and open up more of the campus for development.
Bailey said the demolition of Hamlin Hall along with Hightower Hall and Duggar Hall will spearhead a renovation and development effort by the university. Mock said the university will renovate and construct several residence halls, following a national trend of building more apartment-like residence halls.
Volkenant-Meurer said that because of generally low occupancy levels for upperclassmen residence halls, the school shouldn’t have problems accommodating those who were planning to live in Hamlin next year. Volkenant-Meurer said most of the girls who were planning on living in Hamlin will live in Smith Hall, Critz Hall or McKee Hall.
“I’m kind of worried where we’ll live-what roommate I’m gonna have,” Roberts said.
Roberts said she will stick with on-campus residence halls, but her roommate said she might venture off campus.
Mock said conditions at Suttle Hall, Hamlin’s sister residence hall built in 1967, were not nearly as bad as at Hamlin. As of now, the university is not planning to vacate the men’s upperclassmen hall in the near future.
Overall, Bailey said she just wants to improve living conditions for students living in residence halls.
“The experience of living on campus is so important. More than anything else it’s a quality of life issue,” she said. “We want to make living on campus cool again, but before we can do that we have to do something about our facilities.”