Sawyer-Hopkins Dorm Redo Continues Housing Renewal

PROJECT BOASTS BIGGER, BETTER WELLNESS CENTER

Ground has broken on Cushing Academy’s next housing project. The new Sawyer-Hopkins Dorm and Wellness Center will provide modern amenities and much more space on a similar footprint.

Renderings promise a beautiful brick dorm with a pitched metal roof. The project will double the number of faculty apartments on site from three to six, and increase the student bed count from 47 to 60. The building will have more than double the square footage, at 37,000 square feet, according to Ed Kirk, Cushing’s director of master planning and engineering.

The new dorm is designed to provide great flexibility — allowing for it to be all girls, all boys, or a combination. It will feature upgraded rooms, improved storage options, exterior entrances to faculty apartments, and laundry facilities on each floor. In addition, the new dorm layout will make it easier for faculty to support and supervise students. “These enhancements will allow the dorm to work better for the students and work better for the faculty,” says Kirk.

One of the biggest improvements will be the upgraded first-floor Wellness Center, which will be 4,500 square feet, up from 2,000 square feet. The increased capacity will allow for additional offerings including expanded counseling services, pre-diagnostics, and more monitoring spaces.

Kirk says he expects the project to be completed in 18 months. The Wellness Center is expected to open in spring of 2024, with the first new residents moving into the dorm in the fall of 2024.