The new Northside Residence Hall received an official welcome to the WSU campus yesterday at the hall’s dedication ceremony.

The event included appearances by WSU President Elson S. Floyd, the WSU Board of Regents, the building designers, the staff of the new hall, the Cougar Marching Band, and Butch T. Cougar.

The dedication was organized in order to recognize the importance of the building, Dean of Students Melynda Huskey said.

“We don’t build a lot of buildings, and we don’t often get the chance to inaugurate a new residence hall,” she said. “A lot of the residence halls on our campus are 50-60 years old, so this will be with us for a long time. I also love occasions to acknowledge something important.”

The hall features a wide variety of amenities including an outdoor terrace overlooking Mooberry track and 35 student common rooms with pool tables, pingpong tables and televisions.

“Northside genuinely symbolizes the important ways that we are moving forward as a university,” Huskey said. “We really want to encourage a community network, and this symbolizes our commitment to having students flourish.”

Along with community spaces, the building is also an example of environmental sustainability. The construction of the building aimed for a silver certification approval in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), said Terry Boston, assistant vice president of administrative services.

“After completion it takes almost a year to become LEED Certified, but we anticipate a silver certification for the building,” Boston said.

The building itself will continue to act as a role model for future residence projects on the WSU campus, he said.

“This is what we’re aspiring to do and what we want to continue. There are already plans for a sister building right next door that we hope to complete within the next few years,” Boston said.

Freshman business major Leslie Mar does not live in the residence hall, but said that she spends most of her time there.

“Sometimes appearance really matters,” Mar said. “I’m usually here or in other common areas on campus because they’re newer and nicer than my own dorm.”

Mar has also noticed other differences in the experience of the new residence hall compared to her hall.

“The dorm is really clean and quiet,” she said. “It’s a new area and a new space, so people want to stay in their rooms. All the rooms have air conditioning, so why not stay in them.”

Freshman nursing major Da Seul Kim is a resident in Northside, and said that although the common spaces are nice to have, they could have been utilized in different ways.

“Some of the space they could do something better with to make them more usable,” Kim said. “They could have been planned more wisely. We won’t be able to use the terrace in the winter at all.”