1960s buildings renovated at UW-Whitewater
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Work continues on Wellers Hall, above, and Drumlin Hall, below, on the UW-Whitewater campus. Work on Wellers is expected to wrap up next May when it will return to duty as a residence hall. Drumlin, a dining hall, will again serve food starting in next year’s spring semester.
WHITEWATER — What it is: Buildings constructed during the 1960s building boom on the UW-Whitewater campus are starting to show their age. Major renovation projects are underway on two of the buildings—Wellers Hall and Drumlin Hall. Wellers is a residence hall while Drumlin is a dining facility.
"Wellers is undergoing a complete renovation," said Frank Bartlett, the UW-Whitewater director of residence life. "It has completed a 50-year life cycle and it's ready for just about all the mechanicals."
The hall will continue to be used for student housing.
Drumlin has been a dining hall since it was built in the '60s.
"We pretty much gutted the building to replace all the mechanicals," said Tom Pellizzi, assistant director of dining services and retail operations at UW-Whitewater.
The concrete building has a bomb shelter appearance and is structurally sound, Pellizzi said.
"On the west end of the building we had to knock a hole in the wall to get the new air handling system in, but that was not a problem," he said. "The changes will be on the inside."
Drumlin could be the last remaining example of a 1960s campus dining hall and is headed for historic preservation status, Pellizzi said.
Students won't recognize the changes inside.
"We are changing the inside from a food court to an 'all you care to eat' facility," Pellizzi said. "By that we mean students will swipe their card just once, and then be able to go to various stations for more. It's like an all you can eat, but we call it all you care to eat."
What's the progress? Both projects started in the summer. Wellers is scheduled for completion next May. Drumlin is schedule to begin serving food again during next year's spring semester.
Cost: The Drumlin project is a $7 million renovation. Wellers Hall is part of a two-building project with Fischer Hall, another student dorm. Fischer was completed in time for the 2012 fall semester. Both projects cost $12.5 million, but because they were bid as a single project, the cost for each building cannot be broken out.
Jan 2, 2013 at 4:55 p.m.
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"We are changing the inside from a food court to an 'all you care to eat' facility,"
I lived next door to Drumlin in Clem Hall and ate there everyday. It was always "all you can eat" and was never a food court type of set up. Unless that changed after I graduated in 2001.
Jan 2, 2013 at 3:41 p.m.
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I lived in Wellers for a year I can only image how old that place looks now 20 years later. The dorms I have seen on college campuses these days really don't have that institutional/prison look anymore more apartment like.
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