Carter closes, A-House opens

The University of Toledo has made some major residence life changes over the summer, leaving Carter Hall standing empty and abandoned while Academic House and the Honors Academic Village teem with life.

“We closed Carter this year and I know one of the questions that everyone asks is what we are doing with Carter,” said Bradley Menard, associate director for housing. “There really, right now, isn’t a plan. So there’s not really a plan to tear it down, but there’s no plan to reuse it right now and so the university is going to wait and see if there’s a need for that building or not.”

According to Menard, the plan to close Carter Hall has been in the works for several years and should come as no surprise.

“We made a strategic decision to put money into Academic House in lieu of Carter Hall just based upon the amount of money that needs to be put into Carter Hall to renovate it to bring it back up to standards,” said Jason Toth, associate vice president for facilities and construction. “So that’s why we took the direction of taking Carter Hall offline for the time being.”

In Academic House, Menard said the hall has been given new carpet, new paint, new furniture and some basic remodeling. He said the plan was to “freshen up” the lobby and building.

The only thing that has not shifted to Academic House is the P.O.D. that was located in Carter Hall. According to Meghan Cunningham, the assistant director for media relations, the P.O.D. will reopen in Ottawa East in early September.

According to Menard, the number of on-campus residents has remained about the same in the past few years, but because the new Honors Academic Village was built, the residents have shifted. Carter Hall is also much older than the other residence halls, having been built in the 1960s.

“Carter Hall has been taken offline for two reasons, the major one being the fact that those beds are not needed from a numbers standpoint,” Toth said. “We have enough available beds on-campus without Carter Hall being online, and just due to the conditions in Carter Hall, it’s one of our older ResLife facilities.”

Toth and Menard said there is currently a master planning initiative that is slated to begin meeting next week to discuss what to do with dated buildings and how to best use the facilities on campus. This discussion will include Carter Hall and other ResLife facilities. The initiative will look at enrollment projections, talk to students, faculty and staff and work with President Sharon Gaber to develop new strategic initiatives.

Toth said the plan is “to talk about and look at the entire institution, all facets of the institution and gelling everything together so we can make informed decisions on which way to go forward.”