Ren­o­va­tion Projects at Wes­ley Fea­ture New Fur­ni­ture and Equip­ment for Buildings

By Mark Gregorio

The end of a school year on a col­lege or uni­ver­sity cam­pus usu­ally sig­nals the start of many con­struc­tion projects. At Wes­ley Col­lege, a new ren­o­va­tion sea­son began just as the spring semes­ter came to a close. Sev­eral cam­pus build­ings under­went facelifts this sum­mer, with major improve­ments to sev­eral class­rooms and res­i­dence halls.

When stu­dents return to the Col­lege in the fall, one change they will notice is a freshly painted build­ing with brand new fur­ni­ture. Williams Hall, a 23,000 square-foot res­i­dence hall for first and second-year stu­dents, will have two of every­thing in each room: extra long beds, wardrobe units, desks and dressers. Accord­ing to Kevin Hans­bury, direc­tor of res­i­dence life at Wes­ley, the ren­o­va­tion project was an impor­tant invest­ment to allow the Col­lege to meet the needs of its stu­dents. “I think the fur­ni­ture looks great and it enhances the feel of the res­i­dence hall,” he said.

In the H.B. du Pont Col­lege Cen­ter, stu­dent lounges were upgraded with new sofas, tables and chairs. Mary-Alice Oze­choski , dean of stu­dents, stated that the ren­o­va­tions to the 96,000 square-foot Col­lege Cen­ter orig­i­nated from stu­dent feed­back, indi­cat­ing the need for more leisure space on cam­pus. “Stu­dents were request­ing more com­fort­able areas so that they could hang out longer in the Col­lege Cen­ter after classes and dur­ing the evenings,” she said.

The projects in Williams Hall and the Col­lege Cen­ter came with a price tag of $250,000. The Col­lege pur­chased the fur­ni­ture from But­ler Wood­crafters, a com­pany based out of Rich­mond, Vir­ginia that spe­cial­izes in pro­vid­ing qual­ity con­tract fur­ni­ture to schools and uni­ver­si­ties. In addi­tion, Wesley’s book­store, oper­ated by Barnes and Noble, recently received an esti­mated $45,000 make-over.

Respond­ing to the need for more sci­ence equip­ment and bet­ter lab space, the Col­lege recently com­pleted restora­tion on an exist­ing organic chem­istry lab­o­ra­tory. Built in the 1960s, the sci­ence lab located in Can­non Hall needed exten­sive remod­el­ing accord­ing to Col­lege offi­cials. The project included new mechan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal, gas and plumb­ing sys­tems as well as new floor­ing, wall fin­ishes, a barrier-free safety sta­tion, chem­i­cal fume hoods, stor­age cab­i­nets and nine stu­dent work­sta­tions, one of which was made to be handicap-accessible. Dr. Mal­colm J. D’Souza, a Wes­ley chem­istry pro­fes­sor, said the upgrades will increase the num­ber of stu­dents who wish to par­tic­i­pate in under­grad­u­ate research. Fund­ing for the project was obtained through an IDeA grant from the National Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) and admin­is­tered through the Delaware Biotech­nol­ogy Insti­tute to help fur­ther under­grad­u­ate chem­istry research on Wesley’s cam­pus. W