Findings

Dober Lidsky Mathey (DLM) as a result of reviewing much data including the consultants’ reports, nearly 100 meetings with faculty, students, staff, trustees, and community members,  has outlined a draft set of “findings”.  These are summarized here to provide context for the projects and initiatives list.

Wooster’s Campus Facilities Master Planning Efforts Since 1999

Two Campus Master Plans & Several Updates

• Demolition of Hygeia Hall
• New Construction: Morgan Hall
• Renovation of Kauke Hall
• New Construction: Longbrake Student Wellness Center
• Close College Avenue: Landscape
• Close University Street: Landscape
• New Construction: Gault Admissions Center
• Renovate Student Housing
• New Construction: Bornhuetter Hall
• New Construction: Gault Manor
• Renovation of Lowry Student Center
• New Construction: Scot Center
• Removation: Andrews Library (CoRE)

Findings – in Alphabetical Order

Classroom Utilization (informs “incremental department growth”)

• The College has 55 general classrooms
• These classrooms were scheduled on average 17 hours per week
• The utilization target is typically 30 hours per week
• DLM usually recommends 20 to 25 hours per week
• At 20 hrs per week the College can reallocate 9 classrooms to other purposes
• The average class section size is 22 Students
• Seat Utilization in classrooms is 64%

Faculty Offices (informs “incremental department growth”)

• Space Guidelines Range from 100 to 180 net square feet per faculty office
• DLM’s database:  153 net square feet per person for its university clients
• DLM’s database:  141 net square feet per person for its college clients
• Below 100 net square feet is Substandard
• The average College of Wooster faculty office is 187 net square feet

Infrastructure/Sustainability

• Campus-wide irrigation currently uses city water. Rainwater harvesting should be explored to capture rainwater runoff from roofs, impervious surfaces and/or the site in general and reuse the captured rainwater as the source of water for irrigation.
• Main electrical distribution: The campus’s five 4160 volt loops are new as of 2003. There is no need for any upgrades based on the current usage or current campus expansion requirements.  The 26 loop switches which can isolate sections of the 4160 cable vary in age, some of the load break oil switches were installed in the late 50s and early to middle 60s and should be scheduled for replacement within 5 years, as they are past their useful lives.
• A thorough investigation of the Power Plant was conducted by Korda as part of this campus planning study. Coal is used to produce 60% of the heating and 40% of the cooling on campus. Coal use in 2008, before energy savings upgrades, was 8,922 tons and is projected to be about 6,500 tons annually following implementation of the upgrades.
• Central plant conversion concepts explored included solar updraft tower, gas turbines with heat recovery, solar, geothermal, wind turbines, biomass, and micro turbines.

Kittredge Hall

• Kittredge is a large venue, flat floor environment with an adjacent kitchen. Formerly used as an alternative student dining resource, it is now used for large scale meetings and events and for the occasional dinner.
• The facility has no convenient or accessible public restrooms.
• The lobby is too small for the number of people that it serves and there are inadequate coat room and storage facilities.
• The Underground, a student pub, is not ADA accessible.

Land Resources & the Golf Course (informs projects & initiatives relating to land use)

• We have 233 Acres including the 115 Acre Golf Course
• The “Top 20”  colleges in DLM’s database  average 408 acres (most w/o golf course)
• The “Top 50” colleges in DLM’s database average 365 acres (most w/o golf course)
• The golf course occupies a significant amount of College land and serves a disproportionate, small number of users.
• The Wooster College golf team plays and practices at the country club, not on the College golf course.
• The first three holes of the golf course on the west side of Palmer Street occupy an important resource for the College’s expansion of playfields.

Landscape & Grounds Equipment Storage

The College lacks sufficient and appropriate storage of outdoor equipment and supplies for maintaining the landscape and grounds. Currently, a variety of storage sheds and garages, as well as the stadium are used for storage. This situation is not good for management and maintenance of equipment.

Lowry Center

• Although the Lowry Pit and Mom’s have been upgraded, the building is in need of renovation and expansion.
• Student dining is constrained, the building lacks a sufficient number of meeting spaces, back of the house kitchen support is awkward, and there is insufficient space for student clubs and organizations.
• Lowry lacks event space for College and student events, guest speakers, and conferences.
• Storage for the bookstore, food service, and related programs is insufficient.
• The main entrance to Lowry Center is uninspiring. The information booth and Post Office location should be reviewed.
• There is no appropriate entrance from the rear parking lot. Coming from the lot, most people enter through the service entrance – the only entrance available to them.

Mateer Hall

Constructed in 1968, Mateer Hall is the only science building that has not been renovatedand upgraded. Mateer was conceived, designed, and constructed prior to the vast changes that have taken place in biology and the other sciences and the way in which science is taught and students learn.

McGaw Chapel

• McGaw Chapel is no longer a chapel but a large venue resource for the College.
• It is architecturally out of scale with the nearby buildings and the campus in general. It is a stark and bold in both interior and exterior design.
• It is an uncomfortable building with mediocre acoustics, poor accessibility, and few windows.
• Many people find the building an uneasy design.

Outdoor Gathering Spaces

• The College of Wooster has a beautiful campus, mostly designed to walk from building to building without stopping, lingering, socializing, or studying.
• The campus has several lovely outdoor social spaces, but they are few and hidden gems.
• Outdoor benches are placed, usually singularly, along a path and very few are grouped into a cluster.
• The campus could easily have several outdoor seminar spaces – but none exist today.

Parking:

• The College has a total of 1,531 parking spaces on campus – 81 spaces per 100 students.
• The average number of spaces, per 100 students at campuses with comparable enrollment, is 75.
• The College doesn’t really manage this resource as there are very few rules and  requirements and fees for permits are relatively low.

Physical Education Center

• The PEC gym floor has reached the end of its useful life and cannot be sanded and refinished again.
• The bleachers, too, need to be replaced. Their condition is poor, and their design creates
• awkward spaces in the gym.

Playfields

• The College has a minimum number of playfields for its enrollment size, and for the variety of competing schedules and user groups: athletic teams, intramural teams, club sports, and informal recreational use.
• At times, though, it is more a question of quality than of quantity.
• Spectator seating is minimal and there is a lack of outdoor storage space as well as public facilities such as bathrooms.

Pool

• The existing pool is not sized for NCAA competition. It is 25 yards long x 15 yards wide (75′ x 45′) – too narrow for the 8 lanes required.
• There is no separate diving area.
• Recently, the College repaired a major underground leak.
• The pool and its systems are old and should be replaced.

Student Housing

• The majority of the College’s student housing is traditional with double-loaded corridors and most rooms designed for two students. Twelve of the fourteen student residences are traditional.
• Many of the student residences lack sufficient social spaces and residential life resources.
• The College cannot take a student residence offline for renovation because it lacks staging space- a place for the students to live for 9 to 12 months while the building is being renovated.
• A recent survey by Brailsford and Dunlavey of the College of Wooster students indicates that a large proportion of students desire suite- or apartment-style living accommodations.
• Many of the College of Wooster’s peer institutions have constructed suite and apartment facilities within the past decade.
• Deferred maintenance is an issue that will need to be addressed during renovations.

Wayfaring

[improve and enhance the pedestrian walking experience by adding appropriate sidewalks and modifying existing paths and walkways.]

• The College has a variety of sidewalk styles, widths, materials, and conditions.
• Some paths are shared with service vehicles.
• There is a path to the front door of every College building.
• New paths and the redirection of existing paths will be required as buildings are added to the campus. The north side of the Scott Center, for instance, will require additional paths to the playfields.

Wayfinding

[“destination” and “navigational” signage]

• There is inadequate and inconsistent navigational signage from major arterial roadways to the campus.
• There is a lack of vehicular directional signage on campus.
• It is difficult to find visitor parking or to know where to go to get a visitor’s permit.
• Gateway signs are missing or not well located.
• There is design inconsistency among the different signage on campus.
• Routing prospective students and their parents to Admissions along Bever Street is not impressive or memorable.