Iowa State finds new purpose for an old hotel

AMES - A historic hotel in the Iowa State University Memorial Union will be repurposed this summer into temporary student housing for the next school year to help the institution keep pace with surging enrollment and growing demand to live on campus, officials announced Wednesday.

Transitioning the hotel - on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the union - will add up to 80 student beds in a total of 53 rooms, according to Annette Hacker, director of ISU News Service. Hotel operations will cease July 1, and Hacker said campus officials have not identified an 'end date” for student use of the rooms.

Under the new arrangement, a combined effort of ISU's Memorial Union and Department of Residence, the union housing will function like the rest of Iowa State's residence halls - with support from community advisers and Department of Residence staff.

The former hotel space will be offered to returning students who have 2016-17 residence contracts, according to the university. Iowa State, this academic year, has 12,667 university-operated beds - including more than 11,500 in residence halls and more than 1,150 in student apartments. The number of total university-operated beds has increased 28 percent from 9,930 in 2011, according to ISU data.

That growth reflects similar jumps in enrollment. Iowa State's student body has jumped 41 percent in 10 years - from 25,462 in 2006 to 36,001 last fall.

To accommodate the growth, ISU housed 12,733 students in the fall - the most on record - in part by converting residence hall spaces previously used for other purposes.

ISU officials expect enrollment to continue growing - from 36,001 to 37,085 in 2020, according to a recent Board of Regents report. That report shows requests for on-campus housing at Iowa State exceeding permanent capacity by more than 1,700.

The university expects to accommodate some of that demand with its new 784-bed Buchanan II Residence Hall, slated to open next January.

ISU data shows 95 percent of new freshmen choose to live on campus, and about half of current residents want to stay in university-owned or managed housing the following year. In the fall, Iowa State reported housing 35.4 percent of its total student population - far more than the University of Iowa, which reported housing 6,722 students, or 20.9 percent of its total 32,150 students.

Corey Williamson, interim director of the Memorial Union, called the change in the historic hotel's use 'an evolution of the MU's mission - which continues to be serving students and community,” according to the university.

'The ways in which we do that change throughout the years,” Williamson said.

The union administration, he said, has been conducting a feasibility study to gauge how the building could be renovated to best serve students.

'And an evaluation of the most effective use of the guest rooms has been a central goal of that study,” Williamson said.

The ISU Memorial Union celebrated its grand opening Sept. 23, 1928, and some hotel rooms were available at its inception, Hacker said. The union at that time housed Gold Star Hall, cafeteria services, a beauty shop, barbershop and one floor of guest rooms. The building has undergone several additions and renovations over the years, producing a larger ballroom, bookstore, visitor center and attached parking ramp.

In the 1937-38 academic year, the university moved about 80 coeds into union hotel rooms 'due to a shortage of housing on campus,” according to Williamson.

'Enrollment between 1932 and 1937 had almost doubled, and space needs throughout campus were pressing,” he said. 'Plans for the first addition to the union were made that year.”

Recently, guest rooms on the fourth floor of the union hotel have been used as temporary workspace for the College of Engineering dean's office. Those faculty and staff members will be able to move back to a newly renovated Marston Hall this summer, allowing the union to transition into student living space, according to Williamson.