Orange Hall may not have opened yet, but the students who were supposed to live there are already making the University of Tennessee home.
A lack of resources and an “aggressive” construction schedule led the new residence hall’s opening to be pushed back into the semester. Students who were expecting to move Orange Hall in early August were instead given and charged for rooms in Humes Hall. Orange Hall’s sister dorm, White Hall, opened on schedule.
Both residence halls feature a pod-style floor plan. The halls were built to create a student-focused, village-style community in the west side of campus built around a common courtyard.
UT Housing planned ahead in case one of the west-campus residence halls could not open on time. Originally slated for demolition, Humes Hall was kept open into the Fall semester so there would be rooms available for students. They were charged the price of a Humes Hall room, a $2,975 dorm room a semester, even though they are still expecting to move into Orange Hall before the end of the semester, a $3,250 room. Students who move into Orange Hall when it is complete will have to pay the $3,250 price the next semester.
“I’d rather not tell a student ‘I have no room for you,’ than to say ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience. We’re going to get you over there as quickly as we can get the contractor to tell us everything is working so you can move in safely,’” Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Executive Director of University Housing Frank Cuevas said.
Since Humes Hall was only kept open for the displaced students, rooms were not available for students to purchase for the Fall semester. UT Housing was able to keep Living and Learning Communities together as well as requested roommates while students wait for Orange Hall to open.
“It was a little disappointing at first, being that we have had some problems with the air conditioning in Humes. It’s not as fun, but it is what it is. We’re just waiting,” Hunter Mann, freshman in computer engineering, said.
Students will have about a week to move their belongings into Orange Hall once it is completed, so the move will not interfere with classes. UT Housing is also building a team of volunteers to assist students moving into Orange Hall later in the semester.
“I’m okay with it as long as it gets done in a timely manner … I’m basically ready to pack everything up in a moment’s notice and move over. So, as soon as they’re ready, I’m ready,” Alex Wadovick, freshman in nuclear engineering, said.
Cuevas said the dorm fell victim to a national lack of construction resources as well as weather issues and an unfortunate building site. Orange Hall is built on top of utility lines for Presidential Court as well as city utilities that stretch beyond campus.
Since the 2008 housing bubble burst, there has also been fewer skilled-workers to work on large-scale projects. Most areas of construction such as wood, aluminum framing and electricians have been in short supply, Cuevas said.
UT’s contractors, such as Messer Construction, usually sub-contract their work to different companies. These companies have been struggling to staff construction projects and are looking for skilled laborers.
“When you look at the market for Knoxville, we have a ton of construction occurring all over campus, and there’s a lot of private construction occurring. There’s probably at least 2,000 apartments that came online this fall, and there is a limited number of skilled labor that can handle this type of work,” Cuevas said.
After suffering from difficulties with construction, soil and the weather, it was clear that only one hall would be able to be built on time, and so construction focused on White Hall while the 378 students who signed up to live in Orange Hall were assigned rooms in Humes.
Cuevas is expected to meet with the contractors next week to form a solid timeline and said he will contact students with a date when they will be able to move in. In Spring 2017, Humes is slated to be demolished to build a new dining option for students.
“(Humes Hall) gave us a good opportunity to say, ‘It looks like the aggressive schedule is not going to be made for one of the buildings. So, get one of them done. It’s okay if we’re delayed a little bit.’ That’s okay because we’ve got a place to put and communicate with our students,” Cuevas said.
Despite a planned fall 2016 opening date, Orange Hall remains under construction. Students that had planned to move into Orange have instead been placed in Humes.
