Vermillion, SD

The University of South Dakota North Commons was the main dining facility for the Beede-Mickelson-Olson-Richardson student housing complex since the mid 1960’s. After a new central dining facility was completed 2009, it sat abandoned awaiting to be repurposed or demolitioned. 

In 2017, plans began to renovate the building into shared-use facility for multiple university support service departments scattered across the campus; Student Residential Life, TRIO Program, Student Groups, Student Veteran’s Affairs, Campus Stores, Postal Services, University Copy Center, and the central University IT departments. Renovations will transform the old dining hall into larger modern office and meeting spaces with updated building energy efficient systems.

This project is the first project of the campus wide ‘Greater Move’ masterplan that begins to reorganize and centralize related departments and services to meet a growing student census with improved staffing and use of existing spaces .