Revitalizing Rish
The men’s dormitory Rish Hall underwent extensive renovations during the summer, receiving new flooring, remodeled bathrooms, individual climate controls for each room, electrical upgrades, a new roof, and much more.
“From the outside, the brick is the same. But the windows and everything else you see is upgraded,” said Hal Keene, director of facilities and operations at Bluefield University. “I don’t think there’s any ceiling, wall, light, window, anything that you can walk inside the building and see that’s not brand new.”
Renovations began in mid-April and were completed by late July. The project cost $2-3 million and was funded in part with support from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM), local foundations, and alumni donations. The work was done by Renew Construction, a Bluefield-based company.
“It was a pretty big operation to fit into the timeframe we wanted, and we really didn’t have much choice, cause we don’t have anywhere to put those 120 kids during the school year,” Keene said.
Built in 1960, Rish Hall is the largest residence hall at Bluefield University. Its lowest level includes the Academic Center for Excellence and Careers (ACEC), which received minor updates. The rest of the building was “gutted,” said Keene. Workers have also poured new sidewalks outside Rish Hall, and a picnic area is in progress.
“We got AC now,” said junior J. Vincent, a resident of Rish Hall. “They redid the floors, they got rid of the carpet . . . in the hallways, and they redid the bathrooms, basically putting new showers, new showerheads that are changeable and extended the shower a little bit for the bigger guys on the football team.”
Freshman Anthony Coffee said Rish Hall is “a good dorm.”
“Everybody’s got space,” he said. “The bathroom’s clean. It looks brand-new to me.”
Before the renovations, Rish Hall had no air conditioning and was heated by a boiler. During the summer, the dorms were “miserable,” said Keene. In winter, the temperature might be set for 72 degrees on the first floor, but upper floors could be 10 or 20 degrees hotter. Now, residents in Rish Hall can adjust their room’s temperature individually.
Keene said the goal is for all student housing to have “individual climate control for your own room, so you don’t have to have the same temperature as the whole building.”
Alumni Hall received that upgrade last summer, and work has already begun on Cruise Hall. Renovations will be completed one floor at a time so that students can continue living on the other two floors of Cruise Hall. If all goes as planned, Cruise Hall should be fully remodeled when students return in January.
Keene said President Steve Peterson has been a “big catalyst” for the renovations around campus.
“He’s really been big on understanding that everything goes back to the students and student life really,” Keene said, “because if you’re going to survive in higher education and as a university, you gotta take care of your students.”
During the summer, the university also put a new roof on the Dome, replaced the bleachers, updated the electrical system, and painted the outside.
“We’re getting some of the bigger, heavy lifting done, [so] now we can start looking at fine-tuning and tweaking things around campus,” Keene said. “It’s hard enough to get students in the first place, so when you get them, we want to keep them. We want them to be happy, we want to take care of them. And if there’s a problem, we want to know about it because that’s who is really running the place . . . the students.”