Hello, Goodbye: The demolishment of Mariner and the next plans

Mariner, a residence hall known for a blood streak on the stairs and its old motel physique, is now a lot full of potential for the campus in the future. It had predominantly been housing for the core of cadets until the new Maritime residence hall was built. At the end of the fall 2015 semester, all of the core students and Terry scholars were the first to move into the brand new maritime residence hall, giving way for the demolishing of mariner to begin. Scheduled to begin on March 9, the stained grey cement building was surrounded by a black tarp wall and set up for Cherry Construction to start its job tearing down the old and relatively empty residence hall. Neal Galemo, the Director of Residence Life, was a big part of the process for planning and construction for retiring and demolishing the Mariner building.

“It was just a building that had outlived its life and its practical use,” Golemo said. “When it was built not quite for emergency housing, but there was a real, real need for the university.”

After Hurricane Ike, the university struggled to bring its students back to campus. Approximately 50% of TAMUG students were living off campus when the hurricane hit in 2008, and few were able to return to the island with ease after the disaster. This dilemma prompted the university to begin expanding their housing for students, and centered on making it easier for the freshmen to transition away from home on their own.

“We realized at that point that we needed more housing, and that mariner really wasn’t going to cut it,” Golemo said. “It was going to cost a lot to refurbish mariner and get it back up to snuff because there is a lot of ‘keepin up with the jones’’ in the university.”

Mariner was not always the least desired residence hall. For a long time, people found the large rooms desirable and were perfectly fine with the exterior style.

“It was a great building for a long time,” Golemo said. “When I started here it was where everybody had to live because the rooms were huge, and it was a safe building.”

It wasn’t until recently that residence life made the decision to slowly phase out the building. It was apparent that at some point in the near future the building was no longer going to be as useful to the campus as it was in its former glory days. It was also going to cost a large amount of money coming from student funding to refurbish the building, which residence life agreed would not be the best potential for the spending budget.

“Once we realized a few years ago that we need to start planning for the end, we did the minimum amount of exterior maintenance because every dollar we were putting into it out of student funds was the stuff we weren’t sure we were going to receive a return on,” Golemo said. “It got way worse at the end, which I don’t think was really fair for the legacy of that building.”

Demolishing mariner has given the university open space in the heart of campus, an opportunity not many universities are able to control or provide.

“It was like a giant concrete and rebar curtain,” Golemo said.

The opening of this space leaves to question what will come next for the old mariner lot, and what its new purpose will be for future students. Golemo is promoting an open space for students to enjoy and create into a social center.

“One thing that universities do not do, and that everybody wants, is green space. Once you loose it its so hard to get it back,” Golemo said.

With this opportunity for empty green space to be given to the center of the campus grounds, it is important to take into consideration the use of that space. The surroundings of the lot include Pacific Residence Hall, the gym, and the sand volleyball court.

“I would like to see a Mariner Mall, where it’s just a nice open green space with shade trees,” Golemo said.

The new three-phase academic building next to CLB is making the campus loose lots of green space, so having the opportunity to gain some back is important to the aesthetic of the campus. Since many student life activities are near the mariner lot, it could be very logical to leave the space open for students to use. Many students have talked about adding shade to the lot, and Galemo thinks putting up a ‘hammock farm’ where trees are place in a particular manner for hanging hammocks could be a possibility.

“I think students are so smart, and they will start to use this space in a certain way and it will kind of dictate what it will become,” Galemo said.

Although students had heard that residence life was going to be giving away pieces of the building after it was destroyed, Golemo clarifies that simply is not the case.

“Right now there’s currently no plan to do that. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen if there was a market there and the right people heard about it, and things like that, then I believe that maybe something could be done,” Golemo said. “But I have to be absolutely clear: there are no plans to give away chunks of the building or anything like that.”

First published in The Nautilus.