When asked when the last time the University of Wisconsin’s Chamberlin Hall was open and in use, Doug Sabatke with UW Facilities Planning and Management laughed and said, “It’s been a project for several years; do you mind if I get back to you?”
The $21 million renovation project of 80-year-old Chamberlin Hall is scheduled to finish later this month after more then two-and-a-half years of demolition and renovation.
Before the renovation started, the building was home to the UW School of Pharmacy and some of the physics department. When it reopens, the remainder of that department, which has been residing in Sterling Hall, will sit in Chamberlin.
Sterling Hall will eventually be remodeled for the psychology department, according to Sabatke, the head of major projects for the facilities planning and management.
The remodeling includes modernized laboratories, new and refurbished lecture halls and classrooms, widened corridors to meet building codes and new electrical and plumbing systems.
“Essentially we went and gutted [parts of the building],” Sabatke said, adding that the rest of the building will stay in its original form.
Physics professor Duncan Carlsmith has resided in the previously renovated part of Chamberlin Hall, which has remained open, during the construction.
He said it’s been remarkable how undisruptive the renovations have been. Jackhammers have bothered some of the scientists on lower floors, he noted.
Carlsmith, who teaches some large undergraduate physics courses, said he is looking forward to using the building when it reopens.
“The new building will be great,” Carlsmith said. “We’ll have some fancy new lecture halls and a new room for the undergraduate physics club.”
Because the project began so long ago, only UW students who have been in Madison for more than three years have seen an open Chamberlin Hall.
UW senior Lyndie Paquette said Chamberlin was open when she was a freshman, but she hardly remembers it.
“It’s been forever,” Paquette said. “I walk by it all the time, but I don’t know what it is [used] for.”
Paquette said she’s been irritated at times because of the traffic and walking problems caused by construction but feels the building looks nice because of the renovations.
Sabatke is still unsure of the exact date the building will reopen because of various unforeseen construction issues that have recently arisen.
The project was more complicated than previously expected because of the building’s history. It was built in the 1920s and updated in the 1970s, and those utility systems were interconnected.
Sabatke said he believes classes won’t be held in Chamberlin until next fall because of those construction uncertainties.
