Photo / Phil shockley
$900,000 per year in utility costs. It wasn’t up to modern building codes, contained asbestos and had no fire sprinklers. Also, the things that were part of its core mission — groups such as Campus Life and the International Student Organization — were crammed in the basement, which once housed the longclosed bowling alley. “I think the university began to realize that it just wasn’t what students were looking for,” says OSU’s architect Nigel Jones, who works on the university’s construction projects. Kilcrease, hired in 2005, presided over several renovations in his previous posts including with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. But he had never tackled one this massive, and he jumped at the challenge. “We wanted to make sure we gave back to our passion, which is campus life,” Kilcrease says. “For students. By students. About students.” Everything was accomplished without shutting the building down. OSU moved food services to prefab structures north of the Classroom Building. Other university departments were moved to vacant spaces around campus. The project’s success shows in the popularity of the renovated union. Every
An outside area at the renovated Student Union allows for additional open-air seating.
day, the union is packed; lines jam the food court during lunch. Other changes help with recruitment and retention, such as improving student recruitment office areas and putting Campus Life on the second floor. Students’ college experiences begin at the union when they’re deciding to come to OSU. Undergraduate Admissions, OSU’s student recruitment office, is on the second floor. When they decide to attend, students return to the union and enroll at the registrar’s office. After that, they’ll visit the union an average of three to five times per week, Kilcrease says, for meals and activities. They’ll buy their caps and gowns at the union, too, and return as alumni. “So, the students come back here, and then they start all over with their family,” he says. “Some of them get married in the building. There’s really no other building on campus like it.”
Other Campus projects Monroe Street through campus crews are narrowing the street to slow automobile traffic and are upgrading decayed utilities underneath the street. There will be wider sidewalks for pedestrians and cyclists. The project’s second phase includes a huge pedestrian plaza stretching from Whitehurst to Farm Road. Such plazas are becoming more common on university campuses, and this one will add greater open space and trees. The work should be completed by summer 2013.
Sidewalks will be widened to accommodate more bicycles. The International Plaza north of the Edmon Low Library will be renovated.
The new business building is still in the fundraising phase. With low ceilings, old wiring and little classroom space, the current building dates from the 1960s, and the Spears School of Business has outgrown the space. Plans are to demolish Hanner Hall, which isn’t up to code, and erect the new business building on the site in two phases. After phase one is built, occupants of the existing Business Building will move there; the larger building will then be demolished and phase two built.
A plaza inspired by student designs was recently completed on the west side of the Classroom Building; future plans are to improve the building’s north side, where a massive bike rack sits. The plan is to integrate smaller bike racks with the landscape.
The aging Kerr-Drummond dorm will be demolished on Photo / Gary Lawson
Student Union renovations offer more seating to students to enjoy a cup of coffee or a quick meal.
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Go to statemagazine.okstate.edu to watch an OStateTV video on the renovations at the Student Union.
down the line. It could be replaced by a parking garage. Designs are in progress for a residential hall at a different location, to be called University Commons, to eventually replace the old dorm.
Construction is continuing on OSU’s indoor practice facility, the $16 million Sherman E. Smith Training Center, which is to be completed in 2013. Its outdoor practice fields were completed in 2012. At press time, construction had begun on the tennis facility and was about to begin at the new track facility. Source: Nigel Jones, OSU architect