University of Maryland students who want to live in Dorchester Hall for the 2017-18 academic year will have to relocate after the fall 2017 semester due to a “very intense interior renovation,” said Bill Olen, executive director of planning and construction.
The 58-year-old building, located behind McKeldin Mall, will see updates soon after fall semester final exams end, Olen said. Dorchester will be closed during the winter, spring and summer sessions for the project so it can reopen in time for the fall 2018 semester.
The Department of Resident Life will give information to students placed in Dorchester Hall who want to live on the campus for the full academic year about moving out and relocating after finals, said Dennis Passarella-George, an associate director for the department.
[READ MORE: Resident Life is looking for new locations for its proposed 1,500-bed housing complex]
“Residents will be able to live in Dorchester for the fall, and then they will need to be reassigned to different residence halls for the spring semester,” he said.
Because the situation is unconventional, students who want to be reassigned to another dorm in the spring will have priority over other students who want to swap rooms, Passarella-George said.
The new version of Dorchester will feature new dorm rooms and bathrooms, study lounges on every floor and energy-efficient lights and windows, Olen said. The only sign of change from the outside will be the newer-looking windows, but the interior is expected to be designed very similarly to the newly-renovated Cambridge Hall. He noted that due to the added amenities, the building will lose a few rooms, going from 168 existing beds to 141 beds after the renovation is complete.
The project is “still on schedule and still on budget” and will cost about $10 million, Olen said.
Resident Life is trying to look at this renovation in a positive way, Passarella-George said, because sometimes residents want to cancel housing plans halfway through the academic year to study abroad or to live in their fraternity or sorority house. As a result, the renovation offers a good opportunity for students to live on the campus for only one semester, because Resident Life will cancel housing agreements for anyone who lives in Dorchester and doesn’t want to return for the spring semester, he said.
As a result, students who only want to live on the campus for one semester are ideal candidates for Dorchester, he said.
“Dorchester Hall will be a great place to live for any on-campus residents who know they only need or only want fall 2017 housing,” Passarella-George said. “Those are the students we want living there as much as possible for the fall semester.”
[READ MORE: UMD completes campus projects, preps to start summer construction]
If enough returning students and on-campus residents at this university don’t choose Dorchester as one of their living preferences for the fall semester, Resident Life may end up placing incoming freshmen in the building to meet the housing demand, Passarella-George said. But the department doesn’t assign returning students to any particular dorm, he added.
Shay Kayamboo, a sophomore finance major, said she sees the benefit to the renovations, but added that switching dorms in the middle of the year is a difficult process.
“I had to [relocate dorms] my freshman year, because I lived in Dorchester for the first semester and then moved to Cumberland Hall for the second semester,” she said. “It was just really overwhelming to move my stuff and find a new roommate.”
Dorchester is currently home to the Global Communities living-learning program, which will relocate from fall 2017 to spring 2018 into Elkton Hall, Passarella-George said. This way, residents in the program can still stay together for the entire year, he said.
“The plan right now is that Global Communities will move to Elkton Hall only for one year, and we’re planning for them to move back into Dorchester once the building is refreshed and reopened,” he said.
The next planned housing renovation is Ellicott Hall, but that will be “several years away,” Olen said. Because Ellicott is significantly larger than Dorchester, the cost will be more than $10 million and the duration of the renovation will take longer as well, he said.
