This year, as students shuffle through the different food station lines at Lenoir and Chase Dining Halls, they may notice more than just what’s on the menu.
Carolina Dining Services is preparing to open a new seating area and new food stations in Chase and roll out a new environmental initiative at Lenoir.
Construction is currently underway on a new 5,000-square-foot outdoor dining space at Chase. CDS plans to open the 115-seat space in the first half of October.
“Seating has been our challenge in both locations and we had the money and the ability to actually affect Chase Hall’s seating capacity,” Director of Auxiliary Services for Campus Enterprises Scott Myers said.
Myers said the area will be accessible through large doors at the rear of the existing dining space in Chase and that the reimagined space will take advantage of Chase’s heightened position.
“It sits on top of a parking deck, so you couldn’t put heavy construction up there. Architects had to figure out how to put a lightweight seating structure out there,” said Myers. “It’s really a feat of engineering genius on their part.”
Plans for the project were introduced about four years ago, and the Student Dining Board started looking at the plans about three years ago.
CDS will also roll out new food stations at Chase.
Sophomore Megan Hastings said she went to the dining halls for lunch almost daily last year, but said she sometimes had trouble finding healthy options, as well as choices that she could eat as part of a vegan diet.
