Clay Hall to close in May for renovations
Hundreds of students to be housed in other dorms next semester
Jenna Mink
Issue date: 3/22/07 Section: News
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Clay Hall will close when classes end in May because the university is remodeling the dormitory.
The hall will reopen in August 2008, according to Kenna Middleton, the university housing director.
The hall will receive several renovations, include removable furniture, and new flooring and windows.
"New windows are the best thing since sliced bread," Middleton said. "New windows changes what you can hear, the outside noise. It changes your capability to maintain temperatures."
The dorm will also be given heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades, and kitchens will be placed on every floor.
Some kitchens will be solely for cooking, and others will have an extra space for dining, Middleton said.
The lobby will be refigured, and some handicap rooms and bathrooms will be added, but the room structure will remain the same.
In other words, there will be no suites.
And the laundry rooms will get a high-tech makeover.
A new laundry room, which will be placed on the sixth floor, will have a "surfing bar" where students can plug in their laptops and get an Internet connection while they wait for their clothes to dry.
But the infrastructure is not the only part of the building that will change.
The "guts" of Clay Hall will also be renovated, Middleton said.
"We can go in and make it the Taj Mahal," Middleton said, "but if your sinks overflows, all you do is ruin nice stuff."
Major work will be done on the plumbing. The dormitory will get new plumbing lines and the showers will be redone, Middleton said.
The electrical capacity will also be upgraded so students can plug in their hair dryer, laptop and CD player at the same time.
The changes will make students more comfortable and some changes, like the new windows, will be environmentally savvy, Middleton said.
Still, there are some consequences to closing a residence hall for a year.
The main issue students have to deal with is deciding where they want to live next academic year, Middleton said.
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