Renovation and refurbishment

Central to the development of the University of Delaware over the past decade is its close attention to the significant, if often overlooked, issue of deferred maintenance.

Overcoming deferred maintenance has been an important piece of the University's overall commitment to dramatic improvements in the campus living and learning environment.

As organizations worldwide grapple with the growing problem of aging infrastructures--estimated to be a multi-billion-dollar problem for the nation's institutions of higher education--UD has nearly completed its backlog of deferred maintenance problems, according to President David P. Roselle.

The key, Executive Vice President David E. Hollowell says, has been a deliberate reallocation of resources.

UD overcame $221.1 million worth of deferred maintenance, with only 18 percent of the total price tag covered by state funds.

Roselle says that was accomplished by annually allocating 2 percent of the estimated $1 billion replacement value of property assets to cover renovations, redirecting year-end surpluses, capitalizing on private gifts from alumni and friends of the University and implementing technologies that have allowed academic budgets to grow approximately three times faster than administrative budgets.

During the decade, Hollowell says, the University also completed nearly $156.3 million in new construction projects, with 72 percent of the total price covered by non-state funds.

"UD has spent nearly $400 million on the renovation and refurbishment of existing facilities, as well as new buildings, and the University raised 78 percent of the funds required to achieve these improvements, or $293.4 million, through the strategic reallocation of resources and from private sources," Roselle says.

"We look to the refurbishment of Wolf Hall and the north wing of Brown Lab, and the addition to P.S. du Pont Hall, as signaling the beginning of an era of scheduled, rather than deferred, maintenance," he says.

A report from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education review board in 1996 commended UD's successful renovation efforts, and the reaccreditation report just received was glowing, noting that UD's physical plant "has few, if any, peers among public universities and would be the envy of most private colleges."

Many of UD's renovated buildings are of historic importance, including the recently restored Bayard Sharp Hall. This former Episcopal church, dating back to 1843, is now being used as a recital hall and meeting place.

UD has completed numerous historic preservation projects, Roselle says, "We view these projects in the context of our decade-long war against deferred maintenance. We are near to declaring victory in that war, and the historic preservation projects have proved to be some of our most successful battles."

UD also earned high praise from members of the Society of College and University Planning, who attended a two-day workshop on campus in March 2000. The workshop used University projects to illustrate how postsecondary institutions can find unique solutions to both save and adapt historic properties.

"It's a wonderful campus with a unified view," Hal L. Dean, project manager and architect with West Chester University in West Chester, Pa., says. "The [UD facilities] planning department is one of the best in the country."

Retaining the historic integrity of a university campus is no minor detail in higher education today, David L. Ames, director of UD's Center for Historic Architecture and Design, says.

Graduating students in exit interviews cited the University's beauty as one reason they enrolled. Once they were here, the pleasing environment added to their overall University experience, the students said.

"The University of Delaware looks like what people think a college should look like," Ames says.

The architecture at the University serves as bricks-and-mortar documentation of the institution's cultural history. From its early days in 1834 as New Ark College to 1914, when the board retained the architectural firm of Day & Klauder to create a master plan to guide the campus into the future, UD buildings speak of time, place and people.

Day & Klauder of Philadelphia, one of the foremost college architects in the United States in the first part of the 20th century, adopted a Georgian Revival style to pick up on Delaware's Colonial heritage. The layout--along a central axis--reflected the "University Beautiful Movement" of the late 19th century. That trend grew out of the "City Beautiful Movement" launched by the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the renewed interest in Thomas Jefferson's plan for the University of Virginia.

"The plan was designed to be truly long range--the idea was the campus would be developed over time," Ames says.

When Gore Hall, a classroom building, was built in the late 1990s, it picked up the existing Georgian Revival architecture and occupies a site reserved in the 1915 plan. The building, which marries a classic design with the latest in educational technology, is the result of a $17.5 million gift from Genevieve W. Gore, trustee Robert W. Gore, EG '59, and Sally Gore, CHEP '76M.

And, currently, the renovation and expansion of P.S. du Pont Hall will complete the north Mall as envisioned by Day & Klauder.

"It's amazing that the new buildings and renovation work [at UD] are tied back to a plan created in 1915," Douglas N. Rose, director of space management at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, says. "It gives the campus both history and cohesiveness."

The University's physical history serves as a three-dimensional teaching tool in the areas of art conservation, art history and historic architecture and design.

Furthermore, the historic buildings serve to integrate the University and the surrounding community, according to Bernard Herman, Edward F. and Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg Professor of Art History.

Consider Elliott Hall on East Main Street, which is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Newark, constructed before the American Revolution. The building, which maintains its residential feel to travelers along Main Street, now houses the offices of the dean of the College of Arts and Science. When adapting the building, the University cleverly relocated the entrance to an addition behind the original house, Ames says.

"The University of Delaware recognizes that it is the primary cultural institution in Newark and accepts a responsibility to the community. It consistently sets examples in preservation of the town's historic character," Herman says.

The need for universities to reflect the physical uniqueness of their campuses and communities is only going to deepen as the world becomes increasingly virtual, both Ames and Herman say. In this high-tech age, students, faculty members and visitors are more sensitive to place.

"Place is important to avoid a kind of dislocation as the world becomes more and more anonymous," Herman says.

But, living institutions cannot be frozen in another age. The trick is to balance historic preservation issues with modern requirements–not an easy task. The University has accomplished this by using good design and having a commitment to the historic elements of a building, Ames says.

"Collegiate buildings must be constantly renovated and upgraded to meet new demands of teaching, research and public service if an institution is to be competitive for the best faculty and students. Therein lies the major tension in preserving collegiate buildings," Ames says.

"It's a tension between maintaining the historic architectural integrity of a building and upgrading it to incorporate not only the ordinary (like new mechanical systems), but also the exotic (like the latest computer and scientific technologies), in other words, to create what today we call 'smart buildings.'

"In short, the tension is how to make an historic building 'smart' without losing its integrity," Ames says.

Some successful examples of this balance at UD include renovation of Memorial Hall on The Mall (originally built as a library), Hartshorn Hall on East Park Place (originally built as the gymnasium for the Women's College) and Taylor Hall on North College Avenue (originally built as the men's gymnasium). These facilities now serve, respectively, as home to the Department of English, as a performing space for the Professional Theatre Training Program and as space for the Department of Art.

When it comes to adaptive reuse, Munroe Hall off West Delaware Avenue is a wonderfully successful project, creating one building out of three, Herman says, providing office space for faculty in the Departments of History and Anthropology.