WSU’s Pullman campus currently has three empty and unused residence halls. Wilmer Davis Hall, Stevens Hall, and Waller Hall have been vacant since the COVID-19 pandemic, but recent plans have been implemented to bring these buildings back to life.

Kruegel Hall, which sat empty for several years, was recently demolished. However, there are no current plans to demolish the other three buildings.

Sean Greene, associate vice chancellor for student affairs at WSU, said he is aware of the empty residence halls. Plans are being made to decide their future.

“Currently, we’re housing about 4,800 students on campus and those three halls happen to be our oldest halls. Their infrastructure, plumbing and other areas are at end of life,” he said. “We have space for about 5,300 students to live in our residence halls without those three buildings and so we are putting students in the other facilities.”

Despite not being at full capacity, WSU is still looking for options for these buildings, Greene said.

“One of the things we have right now is a consultant who’s been on campus and working with us for the past almost six months,” he said. “They will give a report to use in June of this year with the recommendations of which halls we should renovate and which halls we should ultimately look to replace.”

Student feedback is central to the decisions regarding these empty dorms, Greene said.

“They made connections with over 1,000 students either in the form of surveys, focus groups, things like that, to get feedback on what students are looking for in their residential experience,” he said. “We also have other consultants on board who are helping us with what other institutions are doing, and our res life staff does a pretty good job of keeping track of that as well.”

Greene said WSU is waiting forthe consultant feedback in June before they take any further steps with the vacant halls.

“We are waiting, but I would guess that Wilmer Davis would be recommended, since we also have Hillside Café in there,” he said. “Stevens is a little trickier because it’s the oldest resident hall in our system but its also a historic landmark, so if we make renovations, we’d have to do certain things within it.”

There’s a focus on giving students the best residential experience possible at WSU through the current useable halls on campus, Greene said.

“Even though a lot of our facilities are vintage, we wanted to put students in the best facilities that we had, and we also want to make sure that we’re being as efficient as we can with housing students as well,” he said.

WSU will be presenting their housing and dining budget to the Board of Regents on April 17 while engaging with the consultants and student about how to improve the residential experience.