The start of this semester saw the completion of Letchworth Dining Hall and Bailey Hall. The integration of these buildings into the campus community will follow in the coming weeks.“[Letchworth] is complete, but the Campus Auxiliary Services staff is using the building to understand all of the equipment, get their training down and figure out what they plan on serving,” Director of Facilities Planning and Construction David Norton said. Because of this, Letchworth is not yet open to students.
Norton said that Letchworth contains a number of new eateries such as Max Market, Smokehouse Grill and Maxine’s Café. This allows for a wide selection of food options and cuisines including Asian, baked goods, vegetarian, halal, gluten-free and deli.
According to Norton, the first floor will consist of a large dining space and small market places where students will be able to order food, and the second floor will be an all-you-can-eat buffet-style area.
Alongside Letchworth’s plethora of new food options, there are a number of other special features included in the building, like projection screens in the first floor dining area. “You could turn the dining area into a seminar space,” Norton said. He noted that Letchworth will be able to host movie events and conferences.
Letchworth uses geothermal systems for heating and cooling similar to those included in other recent construction projects on campus. “We have geothermal wells that provide heating and cooling for Monroe Hall, Seneca [Hall] and we also have it over at Doty Hall,” Norton said. Norton said another green feature of Letchworth Dining Hall is a rainwater collection system. “We collect the rainwater and that water is recycled and for used for bathroom fixtures. Rather than flushing water down the toilet, the chlorinated water that you drain is actually rainwater,” he said.
CAS will host open houses at Letchworth this week and next week, specifically for Max Market and Food Studio North on Friday Sept. 5 from 3-5 p.m., Monday Sept. 8 from 10 a.m.-12 p.m., and Sept. 11 from 6-8 p.m. Bailey Hall, which houses general purpose classrooms and faculty offices for the psychology, sociology, geography and anthropology departments, opened to students this semester and to faculty over the summer. “We ended up moving faculty in in July, which gave them a lot of time to settle in and get ready for classes,” Norton said. There are lounges, study rooms and conference rooms dispersed throughout Bailey Hall, providing students and faculty with a lot of space to work outside of the general classroom.
Bailey Hall has been widely praised by students since the start of the semester. “I like how it’s accessible and has stylistic differences from the older buildings,” senior Maddie Herrick said. “I like the fact that there is a lot of room to do homework and study and that whole walls are white boards,” senior Samantha Laspina said. The favorable feedback attributed to the two new buildings is not limited to students. “Both turned out to be very great projects, they are both new gems that we have on campus,” Norton said.