In the center of campus, an empty construction site accumulates snow. Long approval processes and a record-long government shutdown halted construction of Wabash’s new Community Center. But, as students, faculty and staff and the community at large wait patiently for the new building to appear, other infrastructure projects are alive and well.

Almost a year ago today, the College held a groundbreaking ceremony in the Great Hall of the Sparks Center. Announced months prior, demolition of Sparks was originally slated for the summer of 2024, but delays in the approval process for a federal loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pushed demolition back to summer 2025.

But since students came back to campus this past autumn, progress on the site has been limited. What will be a community center has been, for the past few months, a community’s crater. There are a few reasons for the delay in construction. One is that there has been turnover among some of the USDA administrators the College is working with to secure the loan. Another factor is the record-long shutdown of the federal government in late 2025.

“The shutdown impacted us,” said Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Kendra Cooks. “We could not move forward when, even at the state level, they were not monitoring emails. When they were shut down, they were shut down. So, there was no one to work with to do the approvals.”

The College can take solace in the fact that there is federal money set aside for the Community Center project. Thanks to the work of USDA administrators, there has effectively been money with Wabash’s name on it since last fall. However, some of the difficulty as of late has been navigating a loan-approval process that is not built for speed and typically involves the government on the front-end of construction. So, even though the College came to the USDA with finished designs for the building, it still had to work on their timeline.

“The process is not designed to be nimble,” said Cooks. “They’re about safeguarding the federal government and the people of the United States. Even if it inconveniences us, it is their program with their rules and their money. Usually in our projects, we’re able to be much more nimble, so we have been very blessed that we have the right donors between the folks that love Wabash College and the Lilly Endowment.”

The College has already received funding for the construction work done thus far and is hoping to make significant progress towards approval of the rest of the loan. Still, the process has taken longer than expected.

“When we were having preliminary conversations with some of the senior leadership in the state, we had an understanding that it was a more nimble process,” said Cooks. “We still feel like a long-term fixed loan provides the college opportunities and resources we would not have had. It’s definitely worth it to go through the process, or we would have moved away from it. This project has needed to be done for 30 years and we are making it happen.”

While construction on the Community Center is stalled, other campus construction is well underway. Construction of a new parking lot on the south side of Jennison Street, directly across from the Theta Delta Chi house and College Hall, and a new cooling plant south of Martindale Hall has begun. Recently, crews completed a new sidewalk that connects Crawford Street with academic buildings on the Mall. Announced just prior to students departing for Winter Break, the sidewalk will make it easier for students living on the northwest corner of campus to access buildings on the Mall.

“The speedy construction of the path made the disruption very minimal,” said Evan Bone ’26. “Although it is hard to enjoy the scenery in the cold weather, I can see myself reading a book on the new benches and enjoying the fresh greenery once spring arrives.”

The parking lots, cooling plant and walkway are aspects of the College’s 2019 Campus Master Plan. The main feature of the 2019 plan was a campus center, which became, of course, the Community Center project. The Community Center remains the College’s priority project, but meaningful changes to campus are still happening in the meantime.