By Jenna Bunescu | Staff Writer
The Weyerhaeuser directors have relocated the Dornsife Center for Community Engagement (Dornsife Center) and the H.H. “Larry” Larison Trading Room to perform the remodeling of rooms 102 and 105 on the first floor of the building. The plans are to double the size of the trading room, incorporate glass doors and add “more life to the first floor of the building,” said Dornsife Center director Meredith Devey.
“The Dornsife [Center] offices are downsizing, but we’re fine with that. We still have great space for our offices,” said Devey.
It was last fall when the conversation about doing this remodel project started, said Devey. “Remodels on this campus don’t happen very frequently, so this feels like a unique gift,” she said.
Funding from donors of the Whitworth School of Business to allowed for space updates, more natural lighting and new furniture. “The money that the donors gave for that project is going to elevate what both of those offices are able to do now,” said Devey. She is expecting the new space to look “more inviting.” Some changes to the colors of the walls and the carpets are also anticipated, with the Dornsife Center set to have its walls painted bright green.
For a year, the directors and everyone involved have been discussing this project, and “now felt like the right time” to finally implement it, said Devey. Those involved waited until after Community Building Day to start the process due to the Dornsife Center’s involvement in the event.
After Community Building Day, the Dornsife Center had to “downsize almost 15 years of items” that they had collected, which took them about a week, said Devey. The center’s staff viewed it as a “good opportunity to go through old files.”
The Dornsife Center is located in the Career Center in the HUB, and the trading room is on the second floor of Weyerhaeuser. Both the Dornsife staff and the trading room team trading room team will return to their new office spaces on the first floor of Weyerhaeuser by January. “[I hope] to have some grand reopening party,” said Devey.