Smart Renovation Strategies for Residence Halls

New student life buildings are fresh, exciting, and usually expensive. With the right plan, it’s both possible and economical to get the 21st-century building you want with the stock you currently have. All you need is space, a vision and strategies to stay on budget. 

In this episode, we caught up with Joe Stramberg, a principal in TreanorHL’s Higher Education studio, along with Cass Coughlin, the Director of Residential Life Administration at Emporia State University and Teresa Frederick, the Associate Director of Facilities Management at Missouri State University, to talk about these strategies and some interesting project history and fun facts along the way. 

TreanorHL is a national architecture, planning and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit https://treanorhl.com/

Learn more about the projects referenced in this episode:

Woods House Renovation at Missouri State University 

Abigail Morse Hall Renovation at Emporia State University 

TreanorHL is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit treanorhl.com.

Transcript

Megan Brock  00:01
Welcome to TreanorHL Talks, a podcast about architecture planning and design trends as well as current events and noteworthy topics in the field. I am your host, Megan Brock, introducing today's topic: renovation strategies for high-performing student life spaces. New student life buildings are fresh, exciting, and usually expensive. With the right plan, however, it's both possible and economical to get the 21st century building you want with the stock you currently have. All you need is space, a vision, and strategies to stay on budget. Here to talk about these strategies is Joe Stromberg, a Principal at TrenaorHL's Higher Education studio, along with Cass Coughlin, the Director of Residential Life Administration at Emporia State University, and Teresa Frederick, the Associate Director of Facilities Management at Missouri State University. Thank you for joining me today everyone. Please introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about yourself and your role.

Cass Coughlin  01:01
Good morning, my name is Cass Coughlin, the Director of Residential Life at Emporia State University. And I was able to work with Joe and the team at Treanor on our Abigail Morse residence hall project. Abigail Morse is our oldest residence hall that originally opened in February of 1924. And we just reopened it this past fall, September of 2020.

Teresa Frederick  01:25
Hi, my name is Teresa Frederick. I currently serve as the Associate Director of Facilities Management at Missouri State University. I had the opportunity to work with Joe and the Treanor team on the renovation of Woods House. For our renovation, we did a phased project for a 10-floor student building that housed 368 students.

Joe Stramberg  01:50
My name is Joe Stramberg. I'm a principal at TreanorHL in our Higher Education studio with a practice focus on residence life projects on university campuses, and have been at this for over 20 years now and really focused on creating living environments where students can thrive and find success in their university career. 

Megan Brock  02:17
Thanks, everyone. Let's start off by talking about the big picture goals for each of your projects. Why did you decide to renovate and what was the main project goal?

 Teresa Frederick  02:27
In a nutshell for us, we were really focused on the student experience. We were experiencing a lot of enrollment growth, and we had really strong returning student presence in the residence halls. We not only needed beds, but we needed attractive beds for our students. And it wasn't quite the right time for us to build. But we had a building that was showing its age and presenting us with some maintenance and programmatic challenges. And that really became a prime choice for us for a renovation.

Cass Coughlin  03:05
So at Emporia State University, the Abigail Morse project was the final piece of a 10-year housing master plan. We've worked with Brailsford & Dunlavey to create an a master plan for our on-campus housing, and it had a few pivots along the way from their initial recommendations, but overall, combined with their recommendation, our campus master plan, the final piece of that was what to do with the Morse complex, which was five different buildings that were joined together at various points over the 20s, 50s, and early 60s.

Cass Coughlin  03:45
And so ultimately, the campus master plan had called for demolition of all five buildings. And our current president, before we started working toward that goal, said, let's take one more look at this. We knew we needed a certain number of beds for our on-campus population. We knew we were going to have to, if we demolish it all, we're going to have to build new somewhere. And so we did one final study of all five buildings to determine which, if any, buildings were wiser to renovate than demolish. And ultimately what those results confirmed or came with was Abigail, that we could not build anything close to it brand new. There are some other buildings that would not were not financially wise to renovate. And so between the financial wisdom of renovating Abigail, the need to renovate it, to have the number of beds we needed, and then the historical significance. It was kind of that combination of factors that led to the project turned out the way it did.

Joe Stramberg  04:55
Kind of stepping back for a second in terms of comparing and contrasting these two projects. You know, when you think about renovations and at Woods House at Missouri State, mid-century facility, 10 floors, traditional double rooms, you know, what you would think of as a traditional dormitory from years past. And contrasting that to Abigail Morse, you know, brick masonry, 1920s residence hall, with a lot of historical character to it. And just, when you think about renovations and the strategies for each of those, there's, there are a lot of similarities, even with the difference in the design and the architecture.

 Joe Stramberg  05:37
But ultimately, it's about creating a living environment that supports student success in both of these projects, and how, how we got there in both of these cases, along those same lines. And, and then when you think of the delivery methods, and the approach: Woods House, we had to keep the building occupied during the school year. And it was a phased project over two summers. So that was a strategy related to renovation of Woods House. And then Abigail Morse, Cass alluded to, there were buildings that were connected to it. And it was really a full gut renovation from top to bottom with that type of approach. So just kind of interesting, finding those similarities, as well as where those uniquenesses lie.

Megan Brock  06:28
Joe brings up a great point, both Cass and Teresa encountered different challenges based on what each project's goal was. What were some of those challenges, and how did you remedy them? 

 Cass Coughlin  06:39
Anytime I've been a part of a project, even in the interview phase, one of the things that I asked the engineers, the architects, the builders, is what is conflict gonna look like, because there's going to be there's going to be conflict in a project, you know, there's complications or challenges. And so, early in the Abigail project, we knew, because we're taking these old buildings apart, and we knew we're going to have to repair some of the damage because they, other buildings have been joined in kind of different ways with more or less care on preserving the Abigail structure.

 Cass Coughlin  07:16
And so we spent a lot of time and we really delayed the design trying to get the outside of the building right. And there were several times in the process where myself and other colleagues at the University and that I think that's one of the like, throughout this project, both at ESU, at Treanor, the builder team, like I've really appreciated that people came together and, you know, multiple perspectives were taken. But there are several times we pushed really hard on Joe and the Treanor team that we don't think we're getting your A game on what this outside looks like. And to Joe and Treanor's credit, you know, they could have shut down or thrown their hands up and been like, you know, well, tough, or we disagree. But we kept working, it took it took really tough conversations of sharing what we were observing or seen and Treanor responding to that. And, you know, ultimately the results speak for themselves. And we really found the right solution on several tough issues. But it took patience, and it took understanding and but we got there.

Teresa Frederick  08:29
You know, Megan, for us, our biggest challenge was timeline. We couldn't afford to lose the beds for an academic year. And often when you do a renovation to the extent of the Woods House renovation, campuses will do that. Because there was so much work that needed to be done. We touched everything in this building. And so time was really a challenge. And we want everything, right? And so we wanted a one-year project in three months. And so we started with the dream. And the Treanor team helped us figure out how to do that in a way that we could have a great project that touched all of those things, but continue to maintain the beds for each academic year, since we did have so much enrollment growth. 

Teresa Frederick  09:17
And so a piece of that was they developed a really great plan on how we could phase that project in a way that made sense, and would continue to maintain a positive student experience. The way we phased it is our first phase was really focused on the student rooms. And so we did the mechanical and all the finishes in the student rooms, phase one. We left the first floor, the 10th floor and the bathrooms as is for the next academic year. And we let students know you know, pardon our progress. We hope you love these beautiful rooms that we've provided for you And thank you for your patience. Because this upcoming summer, we've got more great things planned. 

Teresa Frederick  10:06
And so that really helped us manage the time piece. We also had a great contractor that we were able to bring onboard. And one thing we identified as while we had a great phasing plan, we'd still needed a little extra time, the way we were able to handle that is we were able to close one of our floors early, so that the contractor could actually begin prior to the end of the spring semester. And that was really crucial to the success of our project. By doing that, we were able to identify some of those things that you can't plan for. Things that were behind walls, and in places that we just didn't anticipate. And it also allowed us then to meet any of those lead time challenges as well. And so a couple things that helped us successfully manage our biggest challenge of time. 

 Joe Stramberg  11:02
And along those lines, Teresa, 10 million dollars in three months of construction. You know, some of the other strategies were making, you know, ordering all those long-lead items and making sure that they were on site ready to go right when the students left the building was one strategy. And another one was, the contractor worked triple shifts, if I'm correct from 7 a.m., to 3:30 in the morning, to be able to get that amount of construction done in that short timeframe were a couple of different strategies that the whole team collectively came up together to, to make this happen.

 Teresa Frederick  11:40
And I will say I am really thankful for our students, because they were so great to work with us through the early project start and they were really great in that in-between year, there was a lot of great product that we had available to them. But the first floor and the 10th floor, they didn't have ceilings for that year, and the students really received things well, and had great attitudes and really appreciate their support through that project.

Megan Brock  12:07
Speaking of students and their reactions to these projects, what do students on your campus want out of these types of facilities? 

Teresa Frederick  12:16
Yeah, our students, they want the physically comfortable, clean spaces. They want flexibility and the ability to personalize their spaces in some way. And they want community places that they can gather together, whether it is with other people or just in the same space, but doing my own thing off to the side. And I really think what Treanor was able to design for us met all of those, those things. With the new mechanical system, students can have physical comfort in their rooms, we were able to open those spaces up to provide different furniture that was more flexible for the students and the bathroom flexibility that we were able to provide. They still have the benefit of community style where we're all going to one area, but they had a lot of privacy, just like they might be used to in their own homes, right? Common space on each floor, and so a lot of times now we see students constantly hanging out and watching TV, and whatever else to all kinds of hours. And we didn't have that before, the students were not utilizing the common area spaces because there wasn't a lot of space, and it wasn't comfortable and appealing. And so I think those are things that students want: flexibility, the ability to personalize things, and the ability to have community. 

Cass Coughlin  13:48
I can think of specific things that they were expecting from the project before, you know. And so they, one of the great attributes of Abigail Morse is it is really, it used to be at the West, kind of out all on its own when it was first built is this building kind of up on a hill by itself, nothing else was around it. And now it's really kind of in the center of campus, the way campus has grown. And so it's super close and convenient to a lot of our academic buildings where students have courses.

Cass Coughlin  14:18
And so one of those was they're like, great, we got this awesome location back for a place to live on campus. And then similar to Teresa, they want to, they want it to be clean, they want it to be pretty, they want to be modern, they want it to be comfortable. They want to have kind of that blend of my space and our space where they can, if they're wanting to be an introvert, they can go hang out be kind of by themselves in a room, if they want to be more extroverted, we've got spaces where I can play pool or ping pong or shuffleboard or whatever. And if they want to be somewhere in between, there's lots of little nooks that they can kind of hang out and be in a small group of one or two or three people.

Cass Coughlin  15:00
Community kitchens had been a big hit on our campus. And so it has, they had a lot of input on kind of what would go into it and Treanor and the Trinium and other folks involved really created an awesome, incredible kitchen space. I love taking photos of it. And making people think that it's my kitchen at home. But yeah, so they, you know, a lot of the same things they're expecting maybe the one difference is just really utilizing that location, and really honoring the history or tradition of the campus. And so both of those expectations have been far surpassed.

Joe Stramberg  15:37
I didn't know this before, but Teresa, you indicated you were a hall director at Abigail Morse complex?

Teresa Frederick  15:44
I was. I was the hall director for Central, South, and Southeast. That's actually where I met my husband and he was the hall director for Abigail and Northeast.

Cass Coughlin  15:55
You gotta come back and see it. The we have, you know, a number of people that have lived there and when they walk in, it's just kind of that literal jaw drop, like, so. 

Teresa Frederick  16:07
Yeah. I appreciate that you've preserved that space.

Cass Coughlin  16:12
Yeah, we don't have the interesting ramps, you know, going for building the building anymore.

Teresa Frederick  16:19
It had personality when I was there.

Cass Coughlin  16:24
Residents tell me it's still haunted, though. 

Joe Stramberg  16:29
You know, I always I have interesting things about both of those projects that I love sharing and just little tidbits. At Woods House on the 10th floor and where we were able to capture that exterior lounge space. Can you imagine having an exterior space on the 10th floor of a building and residence hall in today's environment? But we were able to capture that and that was an old smoking lounge and to see people's reaction when you tell them that it's such a great little tidbit story there and now it's a great collaboration type space and conferencing space. 

Joe Stramberg  17:00
And you know, on Abigail Morse, the historical fireplace that we were able to make a central part of that living room space on the on the on the main level is such a wonderful historical story to tell about that. And it really captures people's imaginations of, of living in that type of a space. 

Megan Brock  17:22
Let's take a break for some fun facts. The renovation of the 1924 Abigail Morse Hall at Emporia State University was very much a revival of the past. If walls could talk, Abigail Morse had a lot to say. An old fireplace, for example, was hidden behind the walls when the project started. The team brought it back out into the open and incorporated it as a centerpiece in the final lobby design by salvaging all the brick and restoring and rebuilding it and its new location. Missing light fixtures were replaced along with a new mirror that follow original design plans. Mailboxes from different time periods were also saved and incorporated as a three-dimensional conversation piece. The team also reused wooden closet doors as decorative elements by repurposing them into shelving in the kitchen and on the walls. Even elevator gears were saved and put on display for residents to see. One of the most impressive historical elements incorporated in the design were images and text from a scrapbook dated back to when the building first opened in the 20s. It contains letters from when the building first opened, poems, and even signatures from residents. The design team scanned it and made one of the features between the main level and the garden floor a wall graphic that incorporates images from the scrapbook and one of the written letters. Elegant scripted words like "gather" and "memories" speak to the timeless role Abigail Morse has played in the lives of students.  

Megan Brock  18:46
So Teresa and Cass, what feedback have you gotten from students since your renovations were completed?

Teresa Frederick  18:53
You know, a big piece of feedback that I would often hear when I would stop into the building is when folks would come back to take a look but had chosen to move to another facility, they were really disappointed that they hadn't had the opportunity to live there. Or if they had graduated, they really had wished we'd done it sooner so they could be part of it. And so that's a really fun feedback to have that folks really noticed a project and wish they could have more time with it.

Cass Coughlin  19:25
I think the piece of feedback, it's kind of a nonverbal piece of feedback where we'll use the expression that students often vote with their feet. And I've shared with Joe and the Treanor team that they did to get a job because we either need to add more beds somehow or dial back the delivery of the product because demand far exceeds supply at Abigail Morse these days. Which is a happy problem as one of my mentors would say. But yeah, so that really just through their actions and where they're selecting to live and where they want to live really indicates their level of satisfaction with Abigail Morse. But in terms of, you know, specific feedback varies from everybody kind of loves a different piece, they love the natural light in the corridors or they love the views out their room or they love the kitchen or some have been super random, I wouldn't even think of they love the beautiful bathrooms and the community spaces on the garden and first level. So, you know, each student is interacting with that building and the architecture in a different way, which I think is how it should be when you really when you really hit it. That's what you hear you hear, you know, there's some commonalities, but everybody has their own little favorite piece of it. 

Teresa Frederick  20:46
One interesting thing for us is, we found prior to doing this project, when we were giving campus tours were really limited on time. And so students typically will see one to two residence halls, typically one of each style. And we found that folks weren't seeing Woods. We weren't getting a lot of tours to that building. It wasn't a showpiece, and we understand that. But what we found now is folks really enjoy touring Woods. And that's one of the first places that we want to take students. And so I love to see that we've changed the student experience, but also in how we're talking about Woods on our, to our prospective students. So now it's one of the first places we go instead of something that we don't really want to put on the radar. It was still a great building, you know, it had great bones, it still had great community before, but it wasn't everything that we know it could be and what it is now,

Megan Brock  21:43
Teresa hit on an important reason why renovations are so valuable to colleges and universities. Student life facilities are also a reflection of the brand of the institution itself and they often speak for themselves as students go on campus tours and decide where they want to spend the next few years of their lives. You want these to be the places that you're proud of and that your students are proud to say they've lived in, because it can make an impact even years down the road. 

Megan Brock  22:08
So let's take a break for some more fun facts. In August of 2019, students moved into the renovated Woods House at Missouri State. TreanorHL sent a move-in crew of staff and designers who worked on the project complete with water, snacks, and a lot of muscle. While talking to students over boxes and furniture, we heard some wonderful stories and reactions to the new space.

Megan Brock  22:31
 One student said, "We used to call it the Woods Hood. But now it's a real destination." Another said, "People have been freaking out about the bathrooms. They don't feel like you're in Woods, but in a hotel." Students were also heard commenting on the lobby feeling bigger and brighter, and they told us it has a homey feeling. The most rewarding part of what we do is getting to see firsthand the reactions of the students and staff who will be using these spaces every day as part of their higher education experience. Renovations can go a long way without the financial and time commitment of new construction.

Megan Brock  23:08
Teresa and Cass, what are a few points you think should be top of mind about renovation strategies moving forward? 

Teresa Frederick  23:15
I think with most projects, these things would probably be in play as well. But anytime we can avoid costly mistakes that is helpful. And so that comes down to providing our design team with as much information as we can. And as accurate of information as we can. With our building, not as old as Cass's, but it was still pretty old. There were some unforeseen things. And so anything we could provide an advance is going to help our team be more successful. Also, I think it's important is to be solid on where your technology is going. We found ourselves in a transition period, we were moving away from a traditional coax cable toward something else. But we didn't know what that was going to be. And so that did have design implications for us. And then also knowing what the demand from our students is related to technology. I think that's something that I would definitely keep high on the list, because it is so much part of their experience to be successful academically, but also just the entertainment and other side of the experience.

Cass Coughlin  24:29
This is a tough question. I've shared with Joe previously that usually during a project and certainly by the time that it's completed and it opens, I know of at least one if not multiple things that I would do differently or never do again. And one time when we were walking the building. Toward the end, I looked at Joe and the Treanor team I said I really don't know like, I'm really mad I can't figure out what I'd do differently. I feel like I ended up figuring out one thing, and I've shared that with the team and I don't remember what that thing is, so it wasn't anything super huge or important. But I think probably the thing that really was driven home for me on this project was holding the purpose. 

Cass Coughlin  25:11
So at Emporia State University, we spent a lot of time with the Kansas Leadership Center, and many of us have been really through several of their different sessions to learn the KLC principles, and one of those key ones is holding the purpose and, and I think, throughout, everybody involved in the process, continued to hold to purpose. And that was to really have a project that that saying, you know, fit our budget, it achieved the main goals we had, it was something that Treanor was proud of, and Trinium was proud of, and the subcontractors and alums and, and so I think that holding the purpose was really important throughout. And I think it highlights for me the importance of open and honest and sometimes critical conversations. But yeah, I'm still I'm still frustrated, I haven't figured out what I would do different so much these days, I'll figure it out.

Joe Stramberg  26:07
You know, and from architect design perspective, you know, we'd like to continue to have conversations with our clients, right, when a project starts or renovation project starts the I think the technology is out there to kind of help mitigate what Teresa was talking about, on the unforeseen conditions of you know, there's the laser 3D scanning that's becoming more and more affordable. So having owners and clients begin to consider that as part of a project expense, I think will help on some of those unforeseen conditions and hopefully, mitigate some of those costly surprises of when you get into construction that could be a little bit more on the expensive side and streamline that process a little bit. So from a lessons learned standpoint, there, you know, there's always in each renovation project is unique, and each client is unique. But that would be one kind of general one that I would love to continue to have that conversation with clients.

Megan Brock  27:12
What advice would you give your design team when kicking off a renovation project?

Teresa Frederick  27:17
I think communication is really key on a lot of different levels. I think for us as we started this project, it was key that we had great communication with our university administration, we had multiple vice presidents and our president visited Woods House, to see what the student experience was in that space. And so that they could understand the priorities of the project. And that really set us up for success. And their support was key along the way.

Teresa Frederick  27:48
I think communication with our building staff and our students was also key to our success. Prior to even engaging with Treanor, we spent a lot of time with our hall staff, and our building staff, periodically walking the buildings with them to understand what they're experiencing, what their challenges are and what their vision might be if budgets were unlimited, what would they want to do if we did a project. And so that helped us as we began engaging with Treanor because we knew some of the things that were priorities for us, and where our team would like to go.

Teresa Frederick  28:26
A lot of times we make sure we have certain folks at the table when we're designing. We we make sure we've got maintenance team members at the table. Um, a lot of times there might be a hall staff presence or a res ed presence. And so, you know, we made sure that folks had opportunities for input. We also made sure we had custodial leadership at the table, the finishes, and their ability to maintain those spaces is just as important as the folks that are maintaining our mechanical systems. So we made sure they had a space to share.

Teresa Frederick  28:59
When we were halfway through the design process, we shared where we were at with students so they could provide their input. Did they like where we were putting outlets? Did we have enough outlets? Were they comfortable with the approach we were taking to the closets into the restrooms and, and so all of these different points, we made sure that we were bringing folks in and letting them have a voice. And I think that's really key, not only to renovation projects, I think it's key to most things. But for us we had some really great examples of how that played out well for us in a successful project. 

Cass Coughlin  29:33
I think I'll build on Teresa's comments just a little bit. As Abigail was beginning, we were completing another project that was a brand new, you know, design from scratch built from scratch. And it's interesting Teresa's comments about input and our input on that project had very different focus and had more of that focus of number of outlets, placement of outlets, you know some of those details on finishes. And so we had already had some of those conversations on a different project. And so we didn't spend as much time on the Abigail project because we knew, or we had a more familiar baseline of what were students expecting what were our custodial maintenance staff expecting.

Cass Coughlin  30:15
And so we had a little bit of a head-start on that, which allowed us to focus on some of the different challenges and priorities for the Abigail project. And I think one of the key things that really helped us as people throughout, there was very little pride in the rooms and people threw out ideas. And I know, I'll just speak for myself, there are some horrible ideas throughout in the design process, but you just never knew which one, which idea might be the stepping block that we would then be able to go okay, well, maybe not that. But if we do this, then one, one example two examples I use, one was on the fireplace. And our vice president said, well, what if we move it? Because it was in a really bad location for how we wanted the building to reopen. He said, well, what if we move it somewhere else? And it's like, everybody's like, yes, that's what we need to do is move it. 

Cass Coughlin  31:08
And then on the exterior, Treanor had thrown together some differences of how we might address the challenges of patching up the outside of the building. And in one of the meetings, they brought a 3D printing and like we had different 3D attachments that we could attach to the north end. I was like, well, what if we do something different on both ends? And it was like, oh, yeah. And so that open exchange really helped us to move, move on some of the challenges. And, you know, similar to Teresa, campus leadership was really helpful in that the president had her priorities, and she shared those and those were known, the vice president really had one priority, and that was budget. So there was no micromanaging from the president or vice president. There were no side conversations, everything was very open and upfront. And, again, it really helped us to hold to purpose throughout the project.

Joe Stramberg  32:05
Well, and Cass, also one of the first things you know, I remember I recall, at some of our early design meetings, you brought the scrapbook from Abigail Morse, right, and that, that just reinforced that sense of purpose and, and then be able to help tell the story through the architecture and the artifacts that we were able to incorporate into the design. To me, were some of those things that we were able to focus on, because you did have that baseline of where the outlets go on your previous projects. So it was, it was a real interesting challenge to dig into to be able to tell the story of this 1920s residence hall, which you know, from Emporia State's history of a teacher's college and everything that went in to an expressing that through the design was really fun, interesting, and a challenge for the design team.

Megan Brock  33:02
Thank you for joining me today, everyone. By working as a team planning far in advance and considering alternative paths and schedules, you can ensure your budget will stay on track while designing space that supports your building users' endeavors. In higher education, it's all about the students. See episode notes are visit treanorhl.com to learn more about how we've helped our clients with space solutions that fit their unique needs and budgets. Thank you for joining us on this episode of TreanorHL Talks. TreanorHL is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information visit treanorhl.com That's t-r-e-a-n-o-r-h-l.com.