Dyson Center Inches Toward Renovations

Side view of Dyson Center projected renovations. Source: Marist College

Frontal view of Dyson Center projected renovations. Source: Marist College

When the Marist College Board of Trustees approved plans for extensive renovations of the Dyson Center in May, it was the first external sign of progress for the project in over 18 months. Construction, slated to begin in Fall 2019, now has a tentative starting date for next summer.

“If all goes well, June 2022 is when we would like to have the shovel in the ground to begin the building of the new Dyson Center,” Dr. Geoffrey Brackett, Marist’s Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. “And that’s all pending final review and board allocation of funding as well.”

The renovations will cost Marist somewhere around $50 million. If everything starts on time, Dyson could be completed in time for the Fall 2024 semester. The project is estimated to take between 18 to 24 months to complete. 

As it stands, the Margaret M. and Charles H. Dyson Center is a stern-looking brick and stone structure near the north end of campus. Sandwiched between Lowell Thomas and Fontaine, both more modern-looking buildings, Dyson’s facade appears cold, foreboding and increasingly out of place.

“There are rooms in Dyson that are caving in,” Mia Garafalo ’23 said. “I have class in a room where they are unable to regulate the temperature. So they either have to make it 50-55 degrees there or 80-85 degrees when students are not in the classroom.”

Opened in 1990, Dyson, which houses the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the School of Management, has gone the last 30 years with only minor renovations to offices and classrooms.

“There’s a reason they don’t show Dyson on tours,” said Garafalo, Deputy Chief Communications Officer for Marist’s Student Government Association. “I’m not sure if in-person tours are going into buildings yet, but my friends who are tour guides are told not to talk about Dyson to the extent that they would with some more of the more beautiful buildings on campus.”

In early October 2019, the college released a statement saying it was delaying the Dyson plans to “ensure this building project meets the needs of our students, faculty and staff both today and in the future.”

“So as part of any process like this for major building, you want to make sure that you’re constantly testing your assumptions on the design,” Brackett, who is in his 11th year at Marist, said. “There was some discussion about the appropriate design for the current needs of the building; for instance, this is literally the academic quad, at the heart of the campus.”

The board’s approval back in May was only the first hurdle for the project to jump over. A plan of this magnitude requires a series of approvals. First, the board will scope the general cost of the renovation, analyze the specific needs for the project and then do a final review of the budget, which includes the cost of goods and labor.

The $50 million needed for the renovations did not appear out of thin air.

“The College has long invested in itself,” Brackett explained. “The operating surpluses year over year are dedicated to being resources that are allocated for the future of the college. So in this instance, there’s enough cash set aside to be able to fund this, if that’s what the trustees all decide to do.”

After the renovations, Dyson will nearly double in size, going from roughly 55,000 to 110,000 square feet. There will also be a new 155-seat lecture hall, along with a cafe, lounge and several multi-purpose collaboration spaces for students and faculty.

The School of Social and Behavioral Sciences will see enhancements like a STEM laboratory for education students, an emergency management hub for criminal justice students and multiple new cognitive, social and developmental psychology labs. In addition, the School of Management’s Student Investment Center will relocate to Dyson from the Hancock Center.

Upon arrival at Marist, current upperclassmen thought Dyson would be renovated by now. Instead, delays, a global pandemic and the amount of time this kind of project takes means that the new building will not open until at least a year after they graduate.

“It kind of feels like a false promise,” Garafalo added. “When I went on my first tour at Marist, they alluded to the plans, and they alluded to the fact that Dyson was going to be renovated and looking brand new. So it does feel kind of like we were cheated out of a great opportunity.”

While it looks like only the class of 2025 will have use of the new Dyson during their senior year, Brackett emphasizes that delays to a project of this scale are not rare.

“The delay of a project, from a student’s perspective, may seem like something that’s out of the ordinary,” he said. “Actually, it isn’t out of the ordinary at all. Many of the projects that we’ve undertaken, we plan for by putting a provisional year in place.”

When the renovations do come, Dyson will once again become a haven for Marist students. But as the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” The new Dyson Center certainly will not be either.

Current rendering of what the brand new Dyson Center will look like after renovation. Source: Marist college