Board approves moving Varsity Hall

Varsity Hall, which currently houses the Air Force ROTC program, will be moved from its present location below Rouss and Wilson halls to a grassy spot below Washington Hall, on the north end of the East Range, the Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee decided Oct. 2.

The move will make way for the expansion of Rouss Hall, which will become the new home of the McIntire School of Commerce. Construction is slated to start in June 2004.

The three-story Varsity Hall was built in 1858 as an infirmary, and its unique ventilation system to treat typhoid is one of the oldest surviving examples of this design.

Committee chairman Mark J. Kington dismissed the idea of demolishing Varsity Hall, saying the University needed the space and it would cost as much to build it as to move this building.