Kent State’s least used residence hall, Verder Hall, sits empty.
With no air conditioning, temperatures can reach upwards of 90 degrees in the summer, which made it unpopular as a place to live on campus.
Verder Hall saw so few residents that its double rooms were converted into single rooms during the spring 2024 semester. With all that in mind, there were plans to demolish Verder and make room for more parking outside of Crawford Hall.
However, going into this past fall semester, the university has halted demolition plans and decided to reopen the residence hall.
Jill Jenkins, University Housing’s senior executive director, said large-scale construction projects like tearing down Verder were put on hold across the university.
“For years now, the plan has been that we are going to take Verder down and that we were going to build new residence halls and that that was our housing plan,” Jenkins said. “The Verder-going-down plan paused because the university is pausing big construction that isn’t absolutely critical.”
Verder Hall has long been shunned due to its lack of air conditioning. Jenkins said Verder would be receiving portable air conditioning units to bring it closer to other residence halls.
“One of the major complaints about Verder is the air conditioning and not having air conditioning,” Jenkins said. “So we are gonna do that, and they’re going to start that project in the next month to make sure that the electric infrastructure can support the number of air conditioning units that we have.”
Portable air conditioning units sit on the floor and pump air from outside through a tube in the window. Jenkins said the university had toyed with adding full air conditioning to Verder Hall a number of years ago, but that price was a barrier.
“We had a price point of about $7 million, and it would take six months,” Jenkins said. “We don’t have that kind of time or that kind of money to invest, but we did come up with a plan where we could put individual A/C units in every room by purchasing the A/C units and upgrading the electric in the building.”
Jenkins said University Housing was motivated to reopen Verder to meet their varying demand for housing.
“The demand for housing is so high that we had to use lounges this past fall to house everybody who wanted to live here,” Jenkins said. “We don’t want to have a residence hall sitting there that isn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon and use lounges, so let’s pump some life back into Verder.”
Alongside the installation of air conditioning units, Jenkins said that Verder would be retaining a number of single-person dorms.
“It’ll be about 70% doubles and 30% singles, with a good mix throughout all three floors, which was intentional for access to bathrooms and similar amenities,” she said.
Jenkins said University Housing stays committed to keeping Verder Hall active for at least the next few years.
“It’ll be part of our program, and our goal then is to not have to use transitional housing and not have to turn students away who want to live here,” Jenkins said. “The electric upgrade is gonna be the most costly part of that.”
Jenkins said the temporary A/C units and electrical upgrades will cost $500,000 compared to the $7 million that it would take to install permanent A/C.
Students are already able to enroll for housing in Verder. Jenkins said the electrical upgrades and installation of portable air conditioner units would be completed by the start of the fall 2025 semester.
“We think it’ll be really desirable, one for students who are familiar with it or maybe lived there before, knew somebody who lived there, but also for folks who have a lot of classes on that side of campus,” she said. “So education majors, business majors, folks who, in this kind of weather, don’t want to walk from Tri-Towers to Crawford Hall, that could cut that a little bit shorter.”
Andrew Bowie is a beat reporter. Contact him at [email protected].
