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Design

A BOLDER

Dining Experience

At BOULDER

he new Village Center Dining
Tand Community Center at the
University of Colorado, Boulder, provide on main campus out
(CU Boulder) brings some of the at Williams Village,” he said.
latest foodservice trends in higher The Village Center’s dining
education to an area of campus aspects improve greatly upon
that is on the rise. what was at Darley Commons.
The construction of the new “It had been built in the late
facility is part of Housing & Din- ’60s — kitchen in the base-
ing Services’ ongoing master plan ment; two levels up was the
to upgrade foodservice locations dining floor; a lot of ineffi-
on campus. “The planning was to Photos by Jesse Peterson ciencies and a lot of the old
step up our game and offer our students a much more com- cafeteria, lunch-lady kind of style,” said Keiser.
parable dining facility out at Williams Village, which is not Housing & Dining Services didn’t have to look far for
a satellite campus, but another part of our campus off of our inspiration for the new facility — in fact, they didn’t even
central campus,” said Jon Keiser, PM, architect and project have to leave the campus. In 2010, the Center for Community
manager of the $48.9-million facility. “There is a perception (C4C) opened on campus and, as profiled in the November
by students who get assigned there that they are far away and issue of On-Campus Hospitality that year, featured a number
stuck out in Williams Village. It has been a very concerted of dining innovations.
effort by Housing & Dining the past eight or so years, building “A lot of cues were taken from C4C,” said Keiser. “We
new residence halls out there, trying to upgrade our facilities took all of the positives and lessons learned, and we tried to
that are out there and also building this new dining facility not repeat those same mistakes, and learn and see how we
and community commons building.” could improve on that at the Village Center. A lot of it was
Unlike Darley Commons, the dining facility that the Village operational and behind the scenes things as well. We also
Center replaces, there are now other community aspects to the worked with The Baker Group, who worked with us on C4C.”
building. “We really tried to help impress upon the students When it came to the food served in the Village Center, the
and give them the same facilities and level of service that we offerings had to be different from anything else on campus.

AT A GLANCE
VILLAGE CENTER DINING AND COMMUNITY CENTER

OPENED: January 11, 2017
SIZE: 113,225 square feet
SEATS: 650 in multiple seating areas, plus 49 in private dining room,
plus 200 outdoors on 4 patios
PROJECT COST: $48.9 million
EQUIPMENT PACKAGE: $5 million
KEY PLAYERS:
DIRECTOR: Paul Houle, CEC
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR: Juergen Friese, CFSP
PROJECT MANAGER: Jon Keiser PM
EXECUTIVE CHEF: Eliah Golden
ARCHITECT AND INTERIOR DESIGN: KSQ Design PC
FOODSERVICE CONSULTANTS: Baker Group
EQUIPMENT DEALER: Johnson Lancaster
CONSTRUCTION: GE Johnson Construction Company

18 | MARCH 2017 ON-CAMPUS HOSPITALITY