Wake Forest’s near-term campus space planning project is underway, according to an announcement by President Susan Wente. 

According to the message, the project aims to create 35% more academic space and 50% more student gathering space, making it the most “significant renewal of the Reynolda Campus core academic spaces” since Wake Forest moved its campus to Winston-Salem in 1956.

“Students, faculty and staff deserve the academic, learning and collaborative spaces that match our academic quality and reputation,” Wente said. 

The launch of the project follows three years of planning and will create 60 offices, 20 specialized teaching and research spaces and more gathering space to support the College of Arts and Sciences. Alongside adding these spaces, the project will focus on “right-sizing” or allocating existing classrooms, labs and offices in the buildings included in the plan. 

The first phase of the project will begin this semester in Alumni Hall. Administrative offices currently housed in the building will move to swing space in the University Corporate Center before becoming the first tenants in an office space built as a part of the Deacon Boulevard project titled “The Grounds.” Plans were released for this project today. The Alumni Hall will then become home to the Philosophy, Education, Computer Science and Entrepreneurship departments as early as Summer 2026. 

Transitioning administrative offices such as Advancement, Marketing and Communications, Finance, Human Resources, Information Systems and Legal to the Baity Street redevelopment area is part of what the university calls “unlocking the campus core.” This means creating an “administrative cluster” that will have increased strategic adjacencies, equitable and quality offices and more access to shared resources. 

Another major renovation includes transforming Benson University Center into an academic building that houses several humanities departments. The timeline for this phase of the project has not been finalized. Tribble Hall, which currently is home to humanities departments, will be demolished, and a new facility, whose purpose has not yet been announced, will be built on the site. However, the project timeline reveals a new student center that will be planned during the 2024-2025 academic year and built in the next few years. 

Alongside proposed minor renovations in buildings such as Pruitt, Kirby-Manchester and Reynolda Hall, Scales Fine Arts Center will undergo major renovations. The plans and timeline for this phase of the project have not been finalized. 

Upon hearing about the new projects happening on and around campus, Sophomore Lilly Larson was concerned about the construction impacting day-to-day life on campus.

“I would not want to be here during the construction and demolition of a big academic building. I feel like that would definitely impact students’ lives here,” Larson said. “In the long run, I think it will be great because the academic buildings here are pretty old, but I think the process of getting there is going to be interesting for sure.”

Sophomore Nishu Shah expressed a similar sentiment, stating that while these changes will positively impact Wake Forest in the future, they may hinder alumni’s feelings of nostalgia when returning to campus. 

“I like the ideas and how they’re going to be executed in the long run, but I’m a little iffy about how it’s going to look short term, especially for incoming freshmen touring campus,” Shah said. “When alumni come back or when we come back after we’ve graduated, it’s going to feel so weird. It’s not going to feel like the place we went to school at. It’s going to feel very new.”

Project sponsor and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jacqueline Travisano looked toward the future and said that the near-term campus space planning project will help meet space allocation needs. 

“Space challenges that we have not met can be met now through the lens of our Strategic Framework, the Baity Street opportunity and larger campus master planning to be kicked off later this year,” Travisano said.