Demolition of Sparks Center planned for beginning of summer
In a matter of weeks, the Mall’s routinely calming environment will be interrupted by the sound of heavy machinery and the echo of the Sparks Center crashing down. Taking its place, once demolition is complete, will be Wabash’s new Community Center.
Across the country, some form of a campus center is available to most students on a college campus. Beginning with demolition of the Sparks Center this summer, Wabash will join these colleges and construct a building to provide event space, dining areas and other entertainment options designed to foster positive relationships both within the Wabash brotherhood as well as the Wabash and Crawfordsville communities.
“We have to invest in places and programs that help all of us improve our emotional well-being,” said Scott Feller, president of the College. “That’s what I want this place to be; one that really tries to address the emotional well-being needs of the community.
“Community” is a recurring word that comes to mind when discussing the purpose of the Community Center.
“[At first] some people called it a ‘Student Center,’ but I think the vision was always for something much larger that would bring more people together than just the students,” said Feller.
The College hopes that the building will become an area where the Wabash community and the Crawfordsville community interact. Although the College offers activities that are open to the public, many Crawfordsville residents choose not to partake.
“It’s actually a surprising number of people who don’t know about what all goes on at the College or saw that what the College did was really insulated and separate from the town,” said Feller. “They didn’t feel that they were as welcome here as I think the students and the faculty and the staff thought.”
The Community Center’s purpose, beyond improving community ties, is to act as a hub for social interaction at Wabash. The building will include an upgraded version of Wally’s, communal lounges, a banquet room and many other amenities. The interior design will include a sleek, modern look, while the exterior will be intentionally less eye-catching.
“It’s not going to be a building that steals the show with its exterior because we think that the spotlight should be on Center Hall and on the Chapel when you’re on the Mall,” said Professor Jeremy Hartnett ’96, a specialist in the intersection between people and the “built” environment, who has been an advisor throughout the development of the Community Center.
According to Hartnett, the building has been intentionally designed to be “somewhat” inefficient. The hope is that it organically leads students to engage in more frequent face-to-face interactions with students that they may not see on a regular basis.
“When you go into the building for breakfast or for a meeting or for something else, we want you to bump into two or three people that you already know and one person that you should know on campus, but your paths haven’t crossed,” said Hartnett.
As the campus has been constructed over time, Wabash has failed to provide students with a clear area for events that fall within the “student life” realm. Currently, club meetings may take place in the lounge of the 1832 Brew or in a living room of a living unit, but never in a space specifically designed for them to meet. The completion of the Community Center will add an element to campus that hopefully tackles this issue and improves the student experience.
“Our new Community Center will be life-altering for Wabash,” said Trustee of the College and Vice-Chairman of the Building and Grounds Committee Jay Williams ’66. “Imagine a place that welcomes every cohort of our community with activities, gathering spots, event spaces and food — at the heart of campus. This will be an all-Wabash building where everyone can go to relax, meet new friends or bring a date and enjoy the social aspects of college at Wabash.”
Students across campus believe that the Community Center will be a significant improvement to Wabash’s culture and hope that the communal area will improve relationships among students.
“I think that it’ll provide a lot of event space that [currently] gets thrown around to random rooms on campus,” said Student Body President Cole Bergman ’24. “This will allow us to centralize our events and I think it’s a great first step towards providing more community space for Wabash guys where we can go to hang out that’s not our fraternity or a room or the library.”
Previous building developments have focused on academic and athletic renovations. The Community Center will be unique in the sense that it prioritizes student emotional and social well-being, an investment previously lacking by the College.
“Historically, we have invested in places for students to work,” said Feller. “The classrooms here are really nice and the laboratories are really nice and the library is very nice, [but] we have never invested in the common space for people to just come together.”
Although the end result will be worth any headaches in the short-term, there will still be headaches nonetheless. Aside from the construction noise and commotion happening right in the heart of campus, which could be a nuisance for students and faculty, the most obvious issue is the lack of dining for independent students.
“The upcoming changes on campus next year, including the closure of Sparks and the unavailability of Wally’s, present some logistical challenges,” said Student Body President-Elect Anthony Donahue ’25. “However, [Vice President-Elect] Jonah Billups ’25 and I have already begun working proactively with the administration and transition team to develop a plan that will allow student events and activities to continue successfully.
“We have had productive discussions with Vic Lindsay and [representatives] from Sparks to ensure this temporary space meets the needs of students for eating, relaxing and hosting events like trivia nights and watch parties,” continued Donahue.
Student and administrative leadership will need to be creative when contemplating ways to deliver a positive student experience. To combat the issues that come with the change, the College will have modular kitchens on the indoor tennis courts to serve students in the absence of the Sparks Center. The Fine Arts Center has been discussed as a supplemental event space for students, but it remains to be seen where else events will be held.
“It will be a mess this fall, but as soon as next spring, when the new building begins to emerge from the ground, we hope our excitement for the future will help overcome the mess,” said Williams.
“The hope is that the building will be a machine for making connections and for weaving new threads through our social fabric,” said Hartnett.
While the delays and inconveniences will be frustrating during the 2024-25 school year, those orchestrating the transition hope that the impact of the Community Center will make a profound, long-term difference for the Wabash community that is well worth any short-term frustrations.