You’ve seen the construction (if only in a campus tour), and watched the buildings rise. Now the wait is over. The Hoya presents an inside look atht the facilities located in the Southwest Quad.
The Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., Dining Hall
Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall has two levels, with the main entrance opening on to the upper level. Each hall has a 600-person capacity, and during peak dining periods both levels will remain open.
The state-of-the-art dining facility has mobile serving carts that can be arranged in multiple ways within the same open space. This allows diners to move freely from the grill to the salad bar to the milkshakes and Starbucks coffee stations without crowded rooms and long lines. Mobile serving stations will offer salads, pizza, grilled items, vegetarian dishes and other cuisine.
Perhaps most impressive are the dining hall’s floor-to-ceiling windows with spectacular panoramic views of the Potomac. Rectangular tables for four, as well as circular tables that seat about eight allow easy movement around the dining area and provide the opportunity for group meals or more intimate conversation.
Dawon Dicks (COL ’04) and John Sims (COL ’05) got a preview of the new dining experience during football preseason last week.
“Everything is right here, right in front of you. It doesn’t take long to get your food – you don’t have to go into different rooms,” Dicks says of the floor arrangements.
New features, like shelved conveyer belts for used trays located in the entryways to each level, prevent frustrating back-ups. Sims agrees with his teammate: “[The hall] is presented better . the lines will go through a lot faster.”
The top floor of the dining hall can be used for special events, including Homecoming and alumni galas.
The bottom floor of the dining hall includes a “team room,” a 50-seat dining room that athletic teams or campus organizations can reserve for group meals or banquets. The room is equipped with video and overhead projectors and the walls are covered with Georgetown sports memorabilia.
The dining hall is named in honor of Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., (CAS ’56), who served as Georgetown University’s 48th President, from 1989-2001.
McCarthy Hall, Kennedy Hall and Reynolds Hall
The MKR residence halls, McCarthy, Kennedy and Reynolds was designed to house 784 students but will house 907 students in its first year, converting 123 double rooms to triples, after there was unprecedented demand of on-campus housing.
The MKR residence halls feature technological innovations intended to make life easier for students. The Southwest Quad has wireless Internet access, although all rooms include individual network jacks as well. They are also equipped with multiple power strips that can accommodate even the most electrically-demanding student.
Students seeking a more outdoorsy setting should appreciate the extensive landscaping surrounding the quad and courtyard. The courtyard, complete with benches and bike racks, looks out onto the Potomac River and is a short walk from the athletic facilities.
Security cameras dot the exterior of the complex at every residence hall entrance. Other safety features like GOCard strips in the elevators and outside entryways will limit access to the buildings.
The three halls connect only on the bottom floor, which does not house any students, and the entire complex contains one RHO, guard desk, mailbox room, a multipurpose room with a library and a laundry room with 26 washers and 26 dryers. The halls share one printing station which students can access through the wireless connection.
McCarthy and Kennedy halls are each eight stories tall, and Reynolds Hall has six floors. Each floor in each building houses about forty students, in single, double and, for the first year, triple occupancy rooms. Two bathrooms are located at the end of each floor.
A community lounge with a full kitchen sits at the center of each floor, right off the elevators, and windows allow passers-by to see who is in the lounge.
Each floor has two study rooms, one with carrels and one with desks and tables, except for those floors with a chaplain, which have only one study room. One Resident Assistant resides on each floor in each building.
Although the halls were designed to accommodate only 784 residents, this year some of the double-occupancy rooms have been made into triples in order to meet a greater demand for on-campus housing. Doubles are large enough for two single beds and other standard furnishings to fit comfortably. Triples include bunked beds and a third lofted bed with the extra desk and chest of drawers installed below the bed.
In addition to standard furniture, all rooms are furnished with vanities that have waist-high mirrors and electronic media stations, which are designed to hold televisions, VCRs and gaming systems.
The three residence halls of the Southwest Quadrangle are named for loyal and longstanding Georgetown supporters in recognition of their generous support of the project. Kennedy Hall which is named in honor of John R. “Jack” (C’ 52) and Elizabeth Kennedy. Now retired as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Paper Company Inc., Kennedy is president of JRK Financial Group. Kennedy has had a long and deeply involved history as a Georgetown leader. Most notably, he served as chair of the Georgetown University Board of Directors from 1995 to 2002. During this time, he also chaired the university’s most ambitious fundraising effort, the $1 billion Third Century Campaign, which will close later this year.
Previous service to the university includes serving as fundraising chair for the Class of 1952’s 40th reunion and as a member of the College Board of Advisors and the university’s Board of Regents. The Kennedy’s have five children, including two Georgetown graduates.
McCarthy Hall is named in recognition of a gift from the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Foundation, to honor the late J. Thomas cCarthy, Esq. who came to know and love Georgetown as a parent of two Georgetown graduates. McCarthy, who died in 1996, served on Georgetown’s Board of Directors and Board of Regents and was a member of the capital campaign committee for the Georgetown Campaign in the 1980’s. His widow, Kathleen Leavey McCarthy, is the daughter of the late Thomas E. (L’ 23) and Dorothy Leavey, for whom the Leavey Student Center is named.
Reynolds Hall honors the four generations of the Thomas A. Reynolds family who graduated from and have supported Georgetown University as donors, alumni leaders and board members. Their legacy began with Thomas A. Reynolds, Sr., who graduated from Georgetown Law Center in 1924. Numerous cousins, uncles, aunts and spouses in the Reynolds family are Georgetown alumni.
Academic and Community Rooms
The McShain Community Room is located in Reynolds Hall and provides programming space for campus events similar to Copley Hall. It is named in honor of John McShain (C’22, H’43), who went on to become a major general contractor in the Washington, D.C. area. He constructed the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial, did extensive renovation of the White House during the Truman administration and worked on the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and National Airport. On campus his firm built the Reiss Science Building, McDonough Gym and some of the buildings in the current Jesuit Residence, among others.
Reynolds Hall also houses four soundproofed music practice rooms large enough for small groups, such as a cappella groups.
McCarthy Hall has three seminar rooms that will be used for classes during the day and for meetings and programming in the evening.
Wolfington Hall Jesuit Residence
Georgetown’s Jesuit community will also have a new home in the Southwest Quad in the Wolfington Hall Jesuit Residence.
The building, the first ever built on campus specifically to house the Jesuit community, includes a chapel, meeting spaces and private living quarters, including upper floors that provide an expanded capacity to address the needs of older Jesuits.
The ground floor includes meeting areas designed to facilitate greater interaction between Jesuits and the university community.
The residence includes a patio that overlooks the Canal Road entrance and the Potomac River.
The building is named in honor of Vince Wolfington (CAS’62). Wolfington has been a longtime volunteer for Georgetown and has been a generous supporter of the university and especially of the Jesuit Community at Georgetown. Wolfington has been a member of the Board of Directors, the Board of Regents and the Board of Alumni Governors. He was a recipient of the John Carroll Award, the highest alumni honor, in 2003.
Underground Parking Garage
A four-level underground parking garage that accommodates approximately 786 vehicles will replace Lot T, which is now open only to Clark Construction. The garage also houses Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle buses and offices as well as a maintenance facility for Georgetown’s fuel cell buses.
Hoya Snaxa
Even students who are not lucky enough to score a room in the Southwest Quad can enjoy shared spaces, like the Corp’s newest grocery vendor, Hoya Snaxa, which opens today in Kennedy Hall.
“Basically, Hoya Snaxa is a glorified convenience store,” Lucy Malcolm (COL ’05), director of marketing for Hoya Snaxa, said. Malcolm said that the store plans on opening for business today, but a more formal grand opening is scheduled for Tuesday.
The store will offer snack goods and breakfast items such as bagels and muffins. Malcolm said that they plan on offering coffee within one month. In addition to foodstuffs, the store will carry small packages of detergent and toiletries.
The store is about one-fifth the size of Vital Vittles, the Corp grocery store located in the Leavey Center, according to Malcolm. “It’s a much smaller space. Vittles will still sell groceries, milk, pasta, canned food and a lot of other things that won’t be at Hoya Snaxa,” she said.
Malcolm said that Hoya Snaxa will complement, not compete with Vital Vittles. “We’re not trying to replace Vittles at all. We’re assuming that the convenience aspect will make people buy more,” she said.
