The Department of Facilities Management plans to renovate and update three dorms this summer, according to the Facilities Management Active Project List.
Dorms in Machado House will receive new bedroom furniture, including beds, desks and chairs. Portions of Machado’s brick facade will be repaired as well. The roof of Hegeman Hall will also receive updates, and Vartan Gregorian Quad’s roofs will be replaced, according to Melissa Flowers, senior director of residential education and operations in the Office of Residential Life.
Construction for these projects is expected to start in June with a target completion date in August. This should impact student residential hall life during the 2019-2020 academic year “only in positive ways,” Flowers wrote in an email to The Herald.
“We are committed to continue our partnership with Facilities Management … allowing us to enhance the physical spaces in an effort to provide a quality residential experience for all,” Flowers wrote.
In addition, the University will repaint portions of walls inside dorms across campus as needed, Flowers wrote. Facilities Management inspects residential halls for damaged paint annually after students move out for the summer, The Herald previously reported. The University will also continue to make enhancements to the Brown Muslim Student Center and the Kosher Kitchen in Wayland House this summer, Flowers wrote.
The University has invested nearly $100 million into residence hall renovations since 2012, most of which was devoted to “transformative renovations” of first-year dorms, The Herald previously reported. The budget for this summer’s dorm renovations has yet to be finalized.
Kudrat Wadhwa ’19 lived in Machado her sophomore and junior years as part of the French Program House. “It was a great idea to live in one of the (program houses) … because they have events to foster a community,” Wadhwa said. But she added that Machado lacked quality community spaces. Machado’s kitchens, lounges and library were “not very well-lit, old and dingy,” she said, and she felt that renovation to such spaces was necessary.
“Machado House is not modern enough. The interiors and the sofas are old and dirty and the piano doesn’t work and the wooden floors creak a lot,” she said, noting that the house was once an early 20th-century mansion.
Alex Lawson ’20 currently lives in New Dorm, which received new carpeting in some areas and a new fire alarm system last summer, The Herald previously reported. Lawson thinks that additional repairs to New Dorm beyond those completed last summer “aren’t the most pressing.”
“Everything works pretty well: the bathroom works; the kitchen works. I don’t think it needs anything now,” Lawson said. He noted that he went to boarding school and lived in some “pretty dingy dorms,” adding that college students don’t “need anything that nice.”
“The Office of Residential Life works closely with the Office of Planning, Design and Construction to complete residence hall renewal projects that are carefully considered and sequenced in a strategic manner,” Flowers wrote. “These annual renewal projects are proactive and preventative maintenance initiatives selected based on needs and standard building and furniture life cycles.”
