New Special Events Space Planned for Huntsman Hall

On the top of the George S. Eccles Business Building there is a nice meeting room called the O.C. Tanner Lounge. It is very popular real estate, with everyone from students, faculty, and administration wanting to book the room for special events and meetings. It’s a wonderful space, with a spectacular view, that has served us well over the years.

In planning for different spaces, we met with different groups of students, faculty and administrative staff. In every meeting we conducted with these different groups, every single group concluded that one of the highest priorities of our new building had to be more event space like the O.C. Tanner Lounge. That’s why we knew that the Huntsman Hall would have to have some added special events space for things like club meetings, faculty presentations, department meetings, training seminars, recruiting receptions, etc.

We just recently decided with the architects exactly how this new fourth-floor space in the Huntsman Hall will be laid out. It will include one large rectangular room, which will be about three times the size of the O.C. Tanner Lounge, which can be divided into two rooms, with one room taking up two thirds of the area and the other, taking up a 1/3 of the area.

It will be attached to a kitchen serving area that caterers can use when they are providing meals for an event. The kitchen area will be located between the large dividable room I just described that can seat up to 160 people and a board room.

The rooms will be available for students to book club meetings, for faculty to hold departmental meetings, and for receptions for things like recruiting events that will bring in outside companies. Once the work is done on Huntsman Hall we’ll have more options available to us for special events. We’ll still use the ninth floor in the Eccles Building but we’ll have a new fourth-floor area in the new building with expansive windows and a new spectacular view of the south end of Cache Valley. Kind of makes you feel like holding a special event right now just to start envisioning it all, doesn’t it?

Ken Snyder