After numerous delays, facility is one step closer to opening
With construction taking place on the sidewalks and the Mall parking lot being shut down permanently, it marks the beginning of the end for the historic Sparks Center — a building that has been serving students since 1954. In its place, for the time being, comes the newest Wabash College dining experience, Grub Hollow, and there is a lot to expect.
“Grub Hollow was constructed for us to be able to have a smooth transition right out of Sparks and into that building,” said Bon Appetit General Manager Mary Jo Arthur. “It has a full kitchen, brand new equipment and everything in that space is basically unwrapped and unpackaged.”
Bon Appetit is excited to transition into the temporary dining unit and have been diligently preparing. Both them and the College have a lot they cannot wait to unveil to students about the new way they will be getting their meals.
“There’s hot food, pizza, deli and sandwiches, and there’s more equipment that we’ll bring over from Sparks,” said Adriann Rhoades, the director of planning, design and construction. “All of the Pepsi machines will be installed here and other drink stations. There’s an L-shaped counter that ends up coming out in [the dining hall] for condiments and things like that. Salad bars and desserts are out here in the center to allow for circulation. The pizza oven will be coming over, and it’ll go on the back wall, in front of the warmer.”
Many of the features of Sparks will be moved over to Grub Hollow as well as additional equipment. With all of these food stations comes a much larger kitchen with new equipment, more freezers and updated bathrooms for students. Even though much of Sparks is coming over, the College promises a new feel to the area.
“Our team is super excited to give the students something fresh and new,” said Arthur. “It’s the stepping stone to the next chapter with this new building.”
It’s not just the food stations that will transition to Grub Hollow but also, furniture from Sparks, wall graphics, four 70-inch TVs, air conditioning and more. With all of these exciting additions, Grub Hollow has been nothing short of a busy project. The facility itself is located on the Collett Tennis Courts and is composed of 10 trailer modules that have been driven in and assembled together.
“We worked with the Indiana Department of Transportation to get the permits to be able to pull the units through on the interstate and then on the state roads,”said President’s Chief of Staff and Director of Strategic Communications Jim Amidon ’87. “Then we worked with the local Crawfordsville Fire Department to get escorts to get these units through town because they were so large, and then brought them here to the tennis courts.”
Despite all of this busy construction it seems like students are getting closer and closer to the new dining hall. On October 1, power was officially turned on to the units and a date for when Grub Hollow will be active is coming soon.
“We’re hopeful to have students be in here before Thanksgiving break and fully operational for the spring semester,” said Amidon.
But it’s more than just inside Grub Hollow students can look forward to. There are plans for students to still be able to eat outside on the new patio of Grub Hollow.
“We have some pretty cool plans for doing some things on the exterior patio space in front and around Grub Hollow that will give this complex a little bit of curb appeal,” said Rhoades, “[We’ll be] moving over the exterior furniture that’s at Sparks and at Wally’s to the exterior patio out here.”
Lots of students have been worried about what will become of Wally’s Pub in the temporary dining hall, but students will not have to worry for long.
“We know that students have embraced Wally’s, and it’s an important part of student life here and alumni life too. So, yeah, it’s on the list of projects to possibly add in the future,” said Amidon.
To help accommodate the new traffic on this side of campus, 56 new parking lots will be put into place for students. The grass plot behind Rogge Hall and Williams Hall will soon go under construction to accommodate the space students need to get to Grub Hollow.
But while preparation for Grub Hollow continues, many students are wondering when Sparks will be taken down. Originally, the building was intended to start demolition during the Summer of 2024, but nothing has happened yet.
“We had this opportunity not quite a year ago to apply for a really low interest long-term loan through USDA that will save us a lot of money short-term and long-term,” said Amidon. “We didn’t quite anticipate that it would be as long a process as it has been but we’re close. We’re very close. We’re kind of down to the very last stages of getting approval for that loan, and one of the conditions of that loan is you can’t start your project until you’re approved.”
Even with these construction delays, the close arrival of Grub Hollow is a huge step in the progress of the new Community Center being built. Bon Appetit will have even more chances to elevate the dining experience
“New stations, new display cooking, new action with the staff forward facing the students,” said Arthur. “The setup in the Sparks Center is obviously a little outdated and the traffic flow doesn’t work, so we have fixed all of those things in the new Community Center and will make it very pleasing for the students.”
With updated kitchens, a new design and a whole new feel, students will soon make a transition to a brand-new dining experience – one that marks an exciting step in Wabash College’s future.