Eastern currently has three unused buildings: Carman Hall, Thomas Hall and Weller Hall.

While out of use for most students, the buildings still serve some use and are planned to have changes made to them in the future. 

With Thomas and Weller Hall shutting down for renovations at the beginning of the academic school year, Mark Hudson, the executive director of housing and dining services at Eastern, said when admission groups come for a tour of Eastern, they sometimes stay a weekend to try and get a feel of an average day on Eastern’s campus. 

In previous years, Taylor Hall was the destination for admission groups to stay when touring. Now, Thomas Hall has become that home. 

Hudson said he’s had plans to invest in Thomas Hall for a while.  

“We are just on the cusp of identifying [the] scope of that project now, and what that means is which utility systems have to be upgraded in the building to keep it going for 50 more years [like] HVAC, electricity, plumbing, et cetera,” Hudson said. 

Hudson said housing is planning on integrating pod bathrooms into the building, which will take care of the plumbing issues as the entire building will have to be replumbed. 

He said he has met with counsels and architects to plan how to incorporate these things in the building. He’s also planning on meeting with student focus groups to get their opinions on what should be incorporated in the buildings over the next few months. 

Because the buildings are out of use, the university has been able to save several hundreds of thousands of dollars on operating costs, Hudson said. 

Hudson said the school is suited to have 11,000 people on campus, but currently only has about half of that, which allows for more space on the campus. 

“[The] building is being half used and so if we consolidate it, we can move away from the operating cost of this building and have that be a saving,” Hudson said. 

Eastern is solely dependent on its budget for the renovations as it is an auxiliary school and will not receive extra money from the state or tuition fees, Hudson said. 

Hudson said a lot of the money that is helping fund these renovations are the double as single rooms selling which currently costs $950. 

To pay for the renovations, Hudson said they are “selling bonds,” which he simplified to taking a mortgage out. He and his team are currently in the process of identifying how much everything is going to cost and financing it. 

By fall 2027, Hudson plans to have renovations done and ready to be moved into. 

“[It’s] a pretty aggressive timeline because of the amount of money, we’re talking about $15 million,” Hudson said. “We got to make sure we have a cash flow to make the payments for the next 25 years.” 

Carman Hall has been out of service since 2013, and Hudson said it is ready to be torn down but has no intentions on tearing it down because of the cost. 

“It’s going to cost $4 million to tear it down,” Hudson said. “For $4 million, I get a parking lot that I don’t need.”  

Hudson said Eastern has saved around $1 million per year in operating costs since shutting Carman Hall down. With these extra finances saved, it goes into other buildings to cover maintenance and other utilities. 

Carman Hall has occasionally become a target practice for ROTC.  

Hudson said the Illinois Fire Institute in Champaign, Illinois has used the building to practice pulling hoses up multiple flights of stairs. It has also been used to help train resident assistants. 

“We do take a floor of that building and the fire department comes in and smokes up a floor so [the resident assistants] can kind of get used to like, OK how would you work through that in order to evacuate people and be safe and all that,” Hudson said. 

Hudson clarified that it is artificial smoke that is used. 

After fixing up Thomas Hall, he plans on moving around the south quad and renovating the rest of the buildings. 

Currently there are no plans to be made for Weller Hall. 

Cam’ron Hardy can be reached at 581-2812 or at cahardy@eiu.edu.