New senior housing, wellness center coming to Denison

Construction of a new residence complex for Denison University seniors heralds further major upgrades for campus housing yet to come, officials say.

Laurel Kennedy, vice president for DU student development, said the university leadership is “really excited to be able to invest resources in student living spaces” in the near future.

Kennedy also noted, “Students have been very, very involved in the design work from the very beginning. That’s a very special feature of this work. We've integrated student voice in as many ways as we could in the process.”

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First up is the construction of the new senior housing apartment structure, made possible by a donation from Denison alumnus Jonathan Silverstein (Class of 1989) along with further funding approved by the DU Board of Trustees.

Ground will be broken during spring break, with a projected move-in date of autumn 2020 for the project that will be constructed over part of the “Sunnies” parking lot, Kennedy said.

“Construction of additional beds is really high on our list because we are embarking on a very significant renovation of all of our residence halls over the next few years and we know we'll lose a number of beds, because that’s what always happens in renovations,” Kennedy said.

Apart from adding 170 beds, Kennedy said the Silverstein Hall project also fulfills a university goal of uniting seniors in a common area directed specifically at serving the needs of that segment of the student population.

“We’ve wanted seniors to live together in sort of the same community,” she said. “This will allow us to create that more independent experience of living for seniors, and relieve stresses on our housing stock for renovations across the community. This will have more of a feel of a senior village.”

Kennedy described the new building as two brick structures “conjoined by a glass walkway.”

“It’s location is right next to the existing apartments we have (Brownstone and Sunset),” she continued. “It’s very beautiful in design. A brick structure with quite a bit of glass. It will have nice green spaces on the front and back sides. In the green space closer to campus side, there is a sort of a hillside that goes down. If students congregate there, it will buffer sound to residential areas.”

Existing student residence spaces will also undergo sweeping improvements over the next four or five years, Kennedy explained.

“Our approach to keeping buildings updated has been patch and repair, rather than gutting and going through full renovations,” she said.

But that level of renovation is coming. “We will do a lot of that over the summer for the next four or five years, really going in and doing a major overhaul. Some buildings need new flooring, some new paint. But in some, we also need renovation for bathrooms and more.”

The university is also working to create more socials spaces to draw student parties and events back to campus sites.

“One of our other goals with regard to residential life is to do what we can to pull social events – social parties, other gatherings that have larger numbers of students involved – to pull those out of students areas and (back to specific areas of campus). Since October, we’ve been working on this with students," Kennedy said.

Apart from renovating existing installations to create more such spaces where students can register for use of the areas for social events, new construction is also planned, including entirely new sites for social spaces.

In a recent letter to students and staff penned by President Adam Weinberg and Kennedy, it was said the new social areas or “lodges” to be constructed will be located “on the Brownstone lot behind the Sunnies. This will give us four new spaces that can each hold up to 75-100 students, with a great outdoor green space in between. The interior spaces can be combined to hold 150-200 students for larger events. We are moving quickly to learn more from students on a few final design details, so that we can open this space by next fall.”

In a recent phone interview, Kennedy elaborated that the social lodges will also be of benefit for the wider Granville community as they can accommodate (high school) graduation parties and wedding receptions.

“We’re excited to construct those. We will break ground on all of these this spring. We want the social lodges to be ready when school opens next year,” Kennedy said.

The final major new construction project still looming is that of a new wellness center, for which money is still being raised, Kennedy said.

The new structure will replace Whistler Hall, and constitute a new approach by the university to student health and welfare.

“The new wellness center has been in design for a little over a year,” Kennedy said.

The current wellness center, Whistler, was built in the 1950s as campus hospital, and so, as Kennedy put it, “the floor plan is not at all aligned for modern health needs. We currently use the second floor for counselors’ offices and use the first floor as exam rooms, offices. We’re really challenged to coordinate care between staff.”

The new wellness facility will be positioned at the center of campus, behind Slayter Hall, and “built into the hillside of the stadium bowl,” Kennedy explained. “The design is driven by the need to coordinate health and counseling, but also to provide wellness orientation for all that occurs in the building. It will be quite beautiful."

Groundbreaking for that DU addition is currently planned for 2020, upon completion of the new senior apartment project.