Photo by Ryan Wichelns | Renovations are underway for the Memorial Union and will take about six years to complete.
The University of Rhode Island is in the early stages of planning a full renovation of the Memorial Union that is expected to be completed in the fall of 2024.
The University plans to take three years to fully design the new Memorial Union, and another three years to complete the extensive renovation.
Last year, administrative members at URI subjected the building to a feasibility study, where an external company reviewed the current structure of the building, looked at proposed plans for its future and created a foreseeable design. The company reached out to Dining Services, the Campus Store, a number of student organizations and all other users to see what their current and future needs are.
“[The company] did some comparative analysis against other student centers and unions across the country, looked at best practices, looked at what different areas of operations needed for square footage to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s students,” Carl Stiles, director of the Memorial Union said. “It’s not just where we are currently, but where we could be in five, 10, 20, years from now so we have opportunities to continue to evolve and grow to meet student needs.”
URI is currently undergoing the review process with the state. The council for post-secondary education will assess the plans first, and then send them to Governor Gina Raimondo’s office for approval. The project will be part of the capital budget for buildings and grounds.
Vice President of Student Affairs, Kathy Collins, stated that renovation to the Memorial Union is expected to cost $62.5 million in total. To cover the cost, URI plans to use money from an auxiliary fund collected through student fees and issue revenue bonds through the Rhode Island Health and Education Bond program. The process of securing bonds will begin in June 2020.
“Providing we gain approval from the state’s Executive and Legislative branches, the project design will commence in July 2019 with the need to have bond monies available to support the ongoing construction by January 2021,” Collins said. “We expect to have bond funding in place by the end of November 2020, early December 2020 at the latest.”
The current design shows some type of renovation on all three levels of the Memorial Union. Stiles and other members of the administrative team planning the renovation would like to completely reconfigure and redesign some parts of the building and do minor updates to other sections. One thing they are looking into is compartmentalizing the building so some areas can stay open later and move students’ overall experience at the University forward.
“How do we operate this building on a 24-hour basis rather than a 12-hour basis?” Stiles said. “One of the pieces is that we’re looking for the opportunity to compartmentalize areas of the building. The atrium area can be secured and separated from the rest of the building so if there’s a late-night event in the atrium area we don’t have to keep the rest of the building open. We can just secure that one area and maintain access.”
Dining services is also looking into making significant changes to Rams Den. Potential design plans show the venue shifting to a completely different part of the building. As a result, members of the retail dining services team are looking into improved ways for ordering meals and offering students a wider variety of options.
“I think that we might look at some options of kiosk ordering that’s more intuitive so students can order on-the-run and then come by and pick it up instead of ordering directly once they get here,” Pierre St. Germain, director for Retail Dining and Food Services said. “I came from a school with a large international and ethnic population so I have an interest in introducing some of that to the student body here in the hopes that they will embrace it.”
The project’s overall goal is to upgrade the experience students have at URI. In addition, the University’s undertaking of this extensive renovation is to enhance the extracurricular experience it can give. Spaces for student organizations, office spaces and large gathering areas are being considered throughout the entire process.
“As the University has built new, state-of-the-art academic buildings that enhance student success- we know that a renovated Memorial Union will impact future generations of Rams,” Collins said. “It can enhance student success by being a place to meet, study and play and it can be this place for residents, commuters, guests, future students and alumni. At this time, we do not have an adequate facility to meet the needs of today’s students.”