The extra fifty feet can be very very taxing
Official Wake Campus Development Thread
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There's nothing wrong with what they want to do I suppose but how about renovate Collins and Babcock first? Lol
I guess they figure that outright tearing down Tribble would be easier than renovating it if there's truly that much wrong with it. I really like the 2019 proposal, it's a shame that it got canned.
I guess they figure that outright tearing down Tribble would be easier than renovating it if there's truly that much wrong with it. I really like the 2019 proposal, it's a shame that it got canned.
CaptRenault
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The latest plan is an admission of failure to raise the required funds to build a new classroom building (with office space and study space) that would meet the standard of an elite university that charges (a list price) of $83K per year.
The previous plan, to build a new academic building on Davis Field, was obviously better than retrofitting a student center into a classroom building.
The failure is on the previous president, Hatch, and the current president, Wente, to raise the money needed from a major donor. Hatch has the excuse that the pandemic intervened with his plan (hope?) to raise the money. Wente has the excuse of, well, she just is not good at raising money for big capital projects. Maybe the WF trustees should have realized that about her before picking her as president three years ago.
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PhDeac
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Where do you get that about Wente? Given all the campus construction over the last 10-15 years and the burgeoning NIL issue, I imagine most of the big donors are tapped out. Also keep in mind, there was a lot of panicking about an upcoming recession in 2022 and 2023.
Eckhouse
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This appears to me to be more about strategic uses of capital as opposed to any kind of failure. Instead of using up green space for construction, this plan allows Wake to remove a likely asbestos-ridden building from the 1960s and build a new amenity-laden student center from scratch, while converting the more spacious and recent Benson into new classroom space. Greatest loss in all of this will be the English Seminar Room. Wake can spend a scary amount of money without having to ask donors or banks for anything.
Yeah, probably a good thing that Notre Dame burned down too, right ? Really looking forward to the improved bridge they’re going to build in Baltimore as well.
Eckhouse
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Neither of those will be rebuilt to the same standards they were the last time they were touched, because of time and technology. And on the scale of historical relevance, Tribble is a distant third on that list. Except for the seminar room, which was cool.
WFFaithful
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The road has already been built across that field.
Deaconblue
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The road leading directly from the campus entrance to the small parking lot between Davis and Taylor dorms is once again where it was when campus opened for business.
CaptRenault
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In general, Wake Forest is in very good shape financially: it has an endowment of about $1.9B (that's an impressive amount though Wake's endowment per student of $217K puts it at #102 among U.S. colleges and universities); it is able to charge Ivy league-level prices for tuition, room and board; and it receives annual donations of between $80-154M per year (the variability probably depends on whether a major capital campaign is going on and whether any very big donations were received for a sports building .
Most of the new construction on the Reynolda campus from recent years has been for non-academic functions: new dorms, impressive athletic facilities, a new dining hall and a small addition to Worrell. The big exception is Farrell Hall, home of the combined grad and undergrad b-schools. Farrell Hall was built during the Hatch regime but the only thing that Hatch had to do with it was his hiring of Steve Reinemund as business dean- Reinemund was the guy who raised the $54M for Farrell Hall. Hatch also had little to do with raising the money for new athletic buildings: Wake alumni McCreary, Sutton and Shah pretty much decided among themselves that Wake had to build campus sports palaces to keep up with its competition in the ACC and elsewhere.
It has been a while since Wake built a new classroom building for the benefit of students and faculty other than those in the b-school. The last major one was Greene Hall (originally named East Hall), which was named after Wake alum Bill Greene. Greene's donation of $5M to Wake put his name on the building after it had been built, so his donation was important but not essential to getting the building built. Anyway Greene Hall was built during the Hearn years.
In sum, it has been challenging for a long time to raise the money for a brand new classroom building for students and faculty in the arts and sciences.
But the need has been there for a long time. Hatch clearly wanted to do it. It was supposed to be his final achievement as president. The proposed building project on Davis Field even progressed in 2019 as far as doing soil tests on the proposed site. But then came the pandemic and everything changed. I guess it's a legit excuse for Hatch not to have gotten the job done, but the fact is that he never raised the money needed.
When Wente was hired, it should have been obvious that Wake needed a president who could raise the money needed for a new classroom building. The need and the proposal were already there under Hatch. The trustees should have looked for someone who had already served as a president at another school and proved to be a good fund raiser. Instead they hired Wente who, like Hatch, was provost (i.e. chief academic officer) at a more prestigious school) but who didn't have a either a track record or the skill set of a fund raiser. Whether you agree with it or not, the main job of a university president is to raise money. Wente has now proven that she is not good at raising money by quickly abandoning the idea of building a new classroom building and falling back on a cheaper, less ideal plan as described in the latest master plan update.
CaptRenault
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Wake doesn't have many potential rich alumni donors who are more interested in academic buildings than sports buildings. McCreary, Sutton and Shah are probably tapped out, but it doesn't seem likely they were ever interested in donating money for a classroom building. Hatch failed to find one or more major donors for his potential crowning achievement of a new classroom building.
The evidence for Wente failing to raise the money is that she apparently didn't even try to do so. She has been spinning her wheels since she took over almost three years ago on her "strategic framework," which is nothing more than a feel- good process for eventually coming up with a new strategic plan somewhere down the road. Wake Forest doesn't need a new strategy and even if it did, then Wente's emphasis on the process is a distraction from developing a new strategy. The only strategy that Wente should have is one for raising the money to build a new classroom building on Davis field (or in another spot identified in the 2019 master plan).
PhDeac
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When did the last big fundraising push end? Like 2018 or 2019?
I have a tough time blaming Wente for having trouble raising funds after the last big campaign, post-COVID, during NIL among a limited group of wealthy donors.
I have a tough time blaming Wente for having trouble raising funds after the last big campaign, post-COVID, during NIL among a limited group of wealthy donors.
CaptRenault
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It would undoubtedly be better, though probably not cheaper, to build a new classroom building (on Davis Field) and be able to use it while an old classroom building (Tribble) gets closed and later updated.
But as I have pointed out, the Wake administration feels that it cannot raise the money to build a new classroom building. So the backup plan is to convert Benson into a classroom building. It's kind of like squeezing a football field into a baseball stadium--it's doable but it comes out looking like the building wasn't designed for the purpose it is being used for.
How much would a new classroom building cost? I don't know for sure and it would depend on a lot of factors, but I would start by using the $54M cost of Farrell Hall, opened in 2013, as a guide. It could easily cost $50M. The building would also have to include at least as much space as Tribble Hall, because Tribble, if it were to be kept as an academic building, would eventually need to be closed for a year or so during renovation. That was the 2019 plan.
The plan to renovate Benson into a classroom building has the benefit of being significantly cheaper and faster than building a brand new building. Apparently Wake can do it for an amount much less than $50M-I don't know-$10M, maybe? That amount doesn't require a single major donor in the same way that a big new building does.
Anyway it's small enough that it can be funded with debt and internal funds supplemented by small donations in return for naming classrooms and study areas. The renovation could probably be done in a year as opposed to about 2 years for a new classroom building. Of course, the big downside is the subsequent need to knock down Tribble and build a new student center. That will be expensive and Wake will have to get by for a while with no student center. Maybe Wente thinks she can get a big donor for a new student center as opposed to a classroom building.
CaptRenault
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Wente to students: “I’m sorry, but we will not be building a new classroom building because we are asking our alumni donors to contribute millions of dollars every year to pay your fellow students to play football, basketball and baseball.”
Maybe Wente should ask the parents of students to fund a new classroom building. That’s what Reinemeund did to get the key $10M donation for Farrell Hall from Mike Farrell (RIP), parent of a then current student.
CaptRenault
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I agree with that. Except for the food court, it seems deserted most of the time. Most students seem to go there mainly to fetch care packages from their parents at the post office.
Deacfreak07
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It was never particularly useful especially for its square footage and location. Excited to see it get much more use.
What do students even do any in a student center these days? Seems like some of the key focus areas like the movie theater are pretty dated amenities. The massive capital investment in the Rec center surely moves the needle for incoming students way more than Benson ever did.
Benson was great and a huge improvement over the student facilities when it open over 30 years ago. Now, it’s a pretty atrociously outdated facility compared to what you get at other schools that don’t cost $90K a year.