Southeast will close Cheney Hall for repairs

Cheney Hall at Southeast Missouri State University will be closed for the 2016-2017 academic year, according to Kendra Skinner, director of residence life.

The building, which was closed in the fall, will undergo construction this spring if weather permits, but the long-term use of the space remains undecided.

Skinner said a major issue the university faces with the building is the infrastructure issues found last fall.

“We discovered after last summer that there was some stair-step cracking that was taking place in the northwest corner of the building, and it was pretty significant — so much so that we had some concerns about the integrity of the building,” Skinner said.

Facilities management, along with outside contractors, were able to look at the building and identify options to repair its foundation. Skinner said funding for these repairs recently was approved, and construction will occur in the late spring or early summer, depending on the weather.

“One of the other issues we had with the building was because of the winter that we had last year,” Skinner said. “It was kind of like this — warm, cold, warm, cold. Lots of freezing, followed by thawing and refreezing. We started to have some issues with the roof, the attic and water infiltration. We had some rooms [last spring] that we actually had to move students from because there was leaking.”

Skinner said while the structural issues are being worked on right away to keep it from getting worse, roof and water-infiltration issues are going to be “a longer process” to repair.

Facilities management made temporary repairs to the roofline over the last year, but long-term repairs will wait until the university decides how best to use the building when it is ready to reopen.

“We’ve had it as a residence hall for quite a long time, and students have really appreciated it,” Skinner said. “The problem is, as they’ve done some of the assessment of that building, we are looking at several million dollars in order to bring that building back online. So as an institution, we need to make a decision. When we spend that kind of money; what does it need to be spent for?”

Skinner mentioned even before damage was found during the summer, she and Angela Meyer, director of facilities management, had discussed using Cheney Hall as a “swing space.” Instead of a residence hall, it would temporarily house academic offices as various academic buildings, such as Grauel Building and Crisp Hall, are being renovated.

Skinner said a few weeks ago at a meeting, university administrators discussed the possible uses for the building, but they are taking their time with a final decision.

“We are really stepping back to see where are those needs,” Skinner said. “There are lots of different offices that are kind of stuffed away in spaces and maybe are constricted and can’t really grow, but need to. So does this provide an opportunity for some of that to happen, or is there a need to have it as residential space? Clearly we have students who would like to have it, and we would be happy to keep it in our system as well. But if there’s a bigger need for the university to have it, then we definitely want to make sure we’re exploring that.”

Facilities management’s next step is for design work. Skinner said most of that work would be to get the 1939 building up to 2016 code standards, including a fire-suppression system and potentially an elevator.

“Based on the initial assessment that we received, if we were to reutilize it as a residence hall space, there are just certain things that are a lot of behind-the-scene things that need to be done in the building,” Skinner said.

Skinner said there are no plans to change the layout of the dorm rooms, but the basement level, which was not used before the closing, might be redesigned for a permanent office space.

Skinner said she expects a final decision on the use of Cheney Hall before the end of the calendar year, and a renovation and reopening timeline will be set at that time.

Pertinent address:

Cheney Hall, Cape Girardeau, Mo.