The new $4.45 million Centennial Hall has opened at the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Architecture and engineering firm SmithGroupJJR partnered with La Crosse, Wis.-based River Architects to design the 182,000-square-foot building.
Centennial Hall houses the college of education and human scienses, and consolidates teacher education that was previously split among three buildings that dated back to the 1950s. It is the first new academic building on the Eau Claire campus in more than 30 years.
The four-story building, located between Schneider Hall and Zorn Arena in the central campus mall area, also houses the Departments of Education Studies, Special Education, English, Languages and select student support services. Major spaces are dedicated to distance education, active learning classrooms, teacher education methods labs, general labs and open study areas, along with a total of 165 offices. Noteworthy are Centennial Hall’s 19 general assignment classrooms – ranging from one 160-seat to five 45-seat rooms – that offer significant new classroom space for use by the entire campus.
