South Hall: A campus building in Limbo

If you have ever walked in the direction of Park Street, the Saxon Inn or the Wellness Center, you have surely seen South Hall, though you may not have known it. It is so covered in vegetation that you may have looked right past it, or if you've seen it, you might just think of it as an uninteresting, derelict building. However, South Hall has a rich history.

In order to appreciate the history, we have to go back to before it was built. In 1907, Kanakadea Hall, which was then the Alfred Grammar School, caught fire. This devastating event forced the town to make an important decision.

The town of Alfred needed more room for its expanding school, so they made a deal with the University. Kanakadea was handed over to the University in exchange for the plot of land that South Hall now sits on. South Hall was completed in 1908, and it became the Alfred Central School. What is now Alumni Hall was, at that time, the Alfred Academy, or the high school.

In 1929, an addition was built onto South Hall to accommodate more students and to serve as the women’s gymnasium, since Davis Gym functioned as the male gym. This addition turned South Hall into a 22,000 sq. ft. structure.

South Hall remained the Alfred Central School until 1940, when Alfred and Almond combined school districts. It was in 1941 that Alfred University bought South Hall back from the town for a price of less than $11,000. The University turned South Hall into classrooms for business administration, social sciences and education.

After WWII, the basement of South Hall was used for military research of ceramics for rockets and jet propulsion.

Eventually, the University deemed South Hall unnecessary, and the building was cleared out in 1976. Later that year it was leased, at no charge, to the Alleghany County Association for Retarded Citizens. They used the space to provide jobs for mentally handicapped residents of Alleghany County until 1987.

The building sat empty from 1987 until 1993, when Powell Campus Center was being built. South Hall acted as the campus center and student union until Powell's completion, in addition to serving as an exhibition space for the School of Art and Design.

In 1994, South Hall was set to be demolished so that the plot of land could be turned into a ceramics museum. The village board voted 6 to 1 for the demolition, and there was even a ground-breaking ceremony for the new building. However, in a drastic turn of events, the village rescinded the demolition permit, and plans to demolish the building were postponed.

The Village board learned that they did not have permission from the National Historic Trust to demolish the building. Because it was built in 1904, it is considered a historic building; in fact, it is the largest structure in Alfred’s historic district.

Overloaded with official paperwork, the University decided to keep the building standing and look into alternative ideas for its use. To renovate the building and bring it up to code in 1995 would have cost $3 million. The other alternative was to let it sit. Former president Edward Coll predicted that the roof would collapse in 4 years, and then the building would have to be condemned.

Almost 15 years later, the roof is still in one piece.

A June 1995 article in the Alfred Sun quoted an employee of Alfred University as saying “We have no use for it."

A press release 10 years later, in April 2005, by current President Charles Edmondson, stated that South Hall would be turned into a 90-bedroom residence hall, which would be completed in the Fall 2006. Over half of the money to transform the building came from a gift from Arthur and Lea Powell. The press release stated that the building “will be converted into paired bedrooms with a shared bathroom between them."

Plans to turn South Hall into a residence hall were postponed in the Fall of 2005 due to objections from Alfred residents.

In 2007, the cost of renovating South Hall ballooned to $8-10 million.

As of 2 weeks ago, a member of AU’s capital operations said that there are no plans for South Hall at this time.