Lawrinson to undergo renovations

It seems as though everywhere students turn on campus, there is a construction project completed or just under way. As of next summer, there will be yet another here at Syracuse University.

And this one has been a long time coming.

Lawrinson Hall, built in 1965, will be entirely renovated for $24 million, from top to bottom.

After structural and electrical work is done next year, summer 2009 will be devoted to work on floors 12 to 21, said Eileen Simmons, director of housing, meal plan and ID card services. The following summer will include renovations on floors two to 11.

"They work from the top down to facilitate the plumbing," Simmons said.

These are still tentative dates and schedules, but the work should be completed by fall 2011, after renovations are finished on the main desk and first floor.

Initially, the housing office hoped to do most of the work in one straight block of time. However, it could not afford to completely shut down the building's operations.

"It would be nice to have a nine-month period from January to August (for renovations), but we just don't have the beds available to do it," Simmons said. Lawrinson has 552 beds, including those for resident advisers.

Lawrinson's renovation will be similar to what Brewster and Boland halls underwent during the past four years. The idea is to make a more aesthetically pleasing building, but success does not rest solely on appearance.

"It's not just about cosmetics," said William Longcore, associate director of the Office of Residence Life. "It's not only that it looks brand new, but that it has the services as well."

The primary change to the building will be on the layout of the residential floors. On every floor, the lounge will move from the middle to the west side of the building, allowing light to flow into the hallways. The current plans call for the removal of four beds per floor, as rooms would be taken out to make space for the new lounge.

"An additional gang bathroom will be added to each floor," said Jim Bell, project manager. Bell, who graduated from SU and at one time lived in Lawrinson, currently works for Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BJC), architect behind the project.

BCJ has done 15 to 20 projects at Syracuse, Bell said. Projects include renovations to Brewster and Boland, as well as to the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Eggers Hall. BCJ has also done work for Bucknell, Lehigh and Carnegie Melon universities.

Much of the work done is to make for a more comfortable and social residence life. Lawrinson is one of the last residence halls on campus that is coed by floor, rather than by room. The additional bathroom will allow for floors to be coed, something that Bell said is what many college students would like in a dorm.

Tashera Bolds lives on the 19th floor of Lawrinson.

"It's not the best dorm at SU," Bolds said. "It's survival." She said the bathrooms are run down and the rooms aren't as nice as those of Brewster and Boland.

"The study lounge feels like a jail," Bolds said.

Another 19th floor resident, Alei Carrington, said she believes the dorm could certainly be improved.

While she and Bolds live on the same floor, the layout of the dorm, with the lounge in the middle, does not allow for the best social scene. "We don't really know the people on the other side of the floor," Carrington said. "It leads to cliques."

These problems are not isolated to the 19th floor, as all of the residential floors are laid out the same. In addition to the layout, the size of the 20-floor building leads to slow elevators.

"The 9:30 a.m. class is the real rush hour for elevators," Bolds said. She said it sometimes takes 15 minutes to get to the ground. "It literally stops at every floor."

These small demands are met in one way or another by an array of people. For one, the students themselves have a say in the design of new buildings or renovations.

"We keep up with the times as best we can," Longcore, ORL associate director, said. For instance, small study rooms in Brewster and Boland that were once used by students with typewriters, were converted into four-person suites.

While typewriters have long passed, ORL makes sure that student input keeps its buildings new and trendy.

Student input comes after students have had both good and bad experiences in the residence halls, Longcore said. ORL takes this information and applies it toward renovations and updates.

"We have an 'anticipated wish list' for what we want to do," Longcore said. "The ability to do better work depends on financial resources." For this reason, details about the Lawrinson renovations for the moment are tentative.

Though many of the ideas for Lawrinson's renovations came from within SU, there are ways in which ideas for improvement come from outside sources. The Association of College and University Housing Officers-International (ACUHO-I) facilitates this process.

"We don't provide people the answers, but we make it so that they can find them," said James Baumann, director of communications and marketing at ACUHO-I's central office. The company began 60 years ago when members from institutions met to figure out what was working for their housing departments, and what was not. It works the same way today, but with a wider array of institutions.

ACUHO-I has members from more than 900 colleges and universities, including many at SU. Longcore is included in this extensive list of members, and speaks fondly of what the group does.

"While I enjoy the national conferences (that they hold), I prefer the ones that are more specific," Longcore said of ACUHO-I's programs.

One specific project that is run by ACUHO-I can be found at 21stcenturyproject.com. The association brought in 100 professionals from across the United States to help determine what will be the "Hall of the Future."

While ACUHO-I claims not to have the definitive answers as to what students demand, they certainly have tracked recent trends.

"One big change in housing is that there are more apartment style residencies," Baumann said. Students enjoy the suites with bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens, rather than the "double-loaded corridors" found in most dorms.

Though Lawrinson's renovations will not be revolutionary, it is a step forward for SU.

"It all formulates into being comfortable," Longcore said. "And it's absolutely a work in progress."