Pictured above: Although it is unclear if the Davis Hall remodel will be finished by July as scheduled, the university’s new residence hall remains on track.
Thomas Iacobucci | The Crow’s Nest
By Savannah Carr
The Lowell E. Davis Memorial Hall’s second-floor remodel has hit a snag amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, the remodel does not have a projected end date.
“We are making every attempt to adhere to our original deadlines,” said Carrie O’Brion, marketing and communications director at USF St. Petersburg, in an email. “However, given all the global uncertainty, we may have to explore alternative scenarios.”
According to O’Brion, it is unclear what these alternative scenarios are because of “too many unknowns.”
The Davis Hall remodel has been riddled with uncertainty since it was first announced two years ago.
In April 2018, the university said blueprints for the project would be finished by the fall of that year. But emphasis on the university’s new, $31.5 million residence hall caused a delay.
In November 2019, the university announced that the project’s completion date would be July 2020. And instead of moving forward with BFRANK Studio LLC, the project would be undertaken by the same architects responsible for the new dorms: the Beck Company.
Davis Hall’s $5 million remodel is supposed to transform the space for the largest college on campus, while also making classrooms more accessible.
Meanwhile, construction on the new Osprey Hall is still on track to be finished by July, despite the pandemic and funding hiccups. But the opening day could be delayed.
The university’s third residence hall –– which will be located at Sixth Avenue South and between Third and Fourth streets –– will accommodate around 375 students, increasing the number of beds on campus by 70 percent.
The building’s west side has already been designated for student life offices, and the east side will house the university’s new dining hall.
The first floor of the building will include laundry services, a student kitchen and a large student lounge. There will also be smaller student lounges on each floor.
In February 2020, the dorm received a $1.5 million boost from USF Tampa’s dining auxiliary fund after low enrollment numbers on the campus left a gap in funding for things such as plumbing, HVAC and electrical work.
Now that the building is almost finished, the university is struggling to fill the rooms. The number of first-time-in-college freshmen plummeted by 52 percent in fall 2019 due to higher admission standards in the face of consolidation.
A Crow’s Nest article from January said university administrators were considering ways to entice students to return to campus housing after their first year. Other options include bringing in graduate students and students from St. Petersburg College who intend to transfer to USF St. Petersburg.
Tours of the unfinished residence hall have ceased, and workers have been told to avoid the rest of campus, per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s social distancing guidelines.
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