Lowell Center to house undergraduate students in fall 2021

For the 2021-22 academic year, University Housing and UW Conference Centers are partnering to use space in the Lowell Center for undergraduate housing at UW–Madison. The move is a temporary initiative to accommodate increased demand for on-campus housing in the upcoming school year.

University Housing anticipates an increase in total residents in 2021-22 as a result of continued enrollment growth and the number of students desiring to live on campus. At the same time, a number of resident rooms remain offline due to the renovation project at Sellery Hall. The temporary use of Lowell allows Housing to accommodate over 270 additional students who want to live on campus next year.

Located at 610 Langdon St. near Memorial Union and State Street, Lowell originally opened in 1961 as a private residence hall and later became a campus hotel, managed by UW Conference Centers. It is also home to the Farm & Industry Short Course residential program, a beginning farmer training program of the UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) that runs from October to March. UW Conference Services, UW Housing, and CALS are committed to accommodating this important program in Lowell as originally envisioned in 2019. UW Conference Centers is also committed to working with additional customers on lodging and hotel room blocks to ensure their hospitality needs are met during this time.

Undergraduate resident rooms at Lowell will be a mix of singles, doubles and triples, each with a private bathroom. Residents will have desks, dressers, and other storage space available in their rooms as well, along with access to high-speed internet, TV service, laundry facilities and shared study spaces, similar to other residence halls. University Housing’s Residence Life team will have on-site staff at Lowell and plans to offer student support and programming throughout the year. Onsite dining service will also be available to Lowell residents.

UW Conference Centers and UW Housing are committed to maintaining employment for employees currently working at Lowell for the duration of Housing’s use of the facility.

“We truly believe the residence halls, along with the services and resources provided by our university staff, are the best place for our students to be successful and supported at UW–Madison, and this partnership allows us to provide that environment to more of these Badgers who want the full Wisconsin Experience,” says Jeff Novak, director of University Housing. “Lowell is a beautiful facility, and we think the residents will really enjoy living there.”

University Housing operates 21 residence halls on the UW–Madison campus with about 8,000 undergraduate students, along with three apartment communities, several dining locations, and summer programs for conference groups and youth camps. While there is no on-campus living requirement at UW–Madison, over 90 percent of the incoming freshman class each year chooses to live in University Residence Halls, along with many returning students and transfer students.

UW Conference Centers has operated on the UW–Madison campus for over 60 years, fulfilling the outreach mission of the Wisconsin Idea by providing high quality conference facilities. UW Conference Centers provides lodging, audiovisual, catering and registration services for roughly 65,000 unique attendees for events and meetings as well as 36,000 campus visitors staying at Lowell annually.