Simpson dining hall receives $7 million for renovations

Next semester, Redstone residents may find themselves trekking to Harris Millis more often than expected.

Simpson Dining Hall, located in Simpson Hall on Redstone campus, will undergo a $7.2 million renovation starting this May.

"It will take us all the way from middle of May, through the first of January to get things completed, everybody moved back in and everything ready for operation," construction project coordinator Cara Hanson said.

In the fall, students will have to go to other dining halls on campus like Harris Millis or Cook Commons for residential dining purposes until Simpson reopens in January.

"Once you know what the scope of work is, and that we are taking all of this out and putting back something completely new, I think you understand why it would take a whole semester," Hanson said.

New additions will include the creation of a Kosher kitchen and the installation of a new electronic order system called iMye, giving students a more personalized and fresher meal that will hopefully cut down on food waste, she said.

"This will be the first dining complex we have actually gone after a LEED certification for," Director of Capital Planning and Management Bob Vaughn said. "We set out to make it a guiding principle of the project to try to attain LEED certification, so this goal will be an interesting first for a dining hall."

"We decided that this was a big enough opportunity, and need for the people that live on this campus that it needed to be done and done right," Hanson said.

The project took shape when the Facilities Design and Construction department of the University received a project request form from Residential Life, requesting to update the dining facility in order to meet the latest needs of students and to make it a nicer gathering place, she said.

"The way students eat, the way that they engage with each other has changed," she said.

Once a place intended for students to get three meals a day, the dining hall is also somewhere to gather and begin to learn how to prepare and select foods, rather than just stand in line and be served whatever is there for the day, she said.

The goal is to create a more inviting atmosphere for the students, Assistant Vice President for Student and Campus Life Annie Stevens said.

"I think the question is, ‘why hasn't Simpson been renovated [already?]'" Stevens said.