Moravian University unveils new student center

Moravian University’s recently renovated Haupert Union Building is now open to the public at 1119 Monocacy St. on the school’s north campus. 

The student union reopened last month after five years of planning. The building is designed as a multipurpose facility with a focus on student health and wellness.

Amber Donato, Moravian’s associate director of project management, said the renovation was necessary because the university outgrew the former two-story structure. She said meeting spaces and the dining hall in the old building could no longer support a growing student body and expanding campus services. 

Donato said the new HUB includes multiple student life offices, such as the health center, residential life and the diversity, equity and inclusion office.

According to the university’s website, the building has four floors. The first floor houses the wellness center, including counseling and psychological services. The second main floor includes the dining hall and career center. The third offers an interfaith prayer room, a commuter lounge and various offices, and the top floor is a conference center that can be rented for external events. 

Donato said the project was funded through donor support and a bond.

She also said construction planning started in March 2020. The center became fully operational last month, although the building stayed open during renovations because the dining hall was considered essential. 

Donato said she’s excited to see students using different areas of the building to gather and study.

“Getting through the move-in process and seeing everybody settle in was the high point for me,” Donato said.

She said multiple iterations of the building’s design were considered, with significant attention to its size and which departments it would house.

Moravian’s President Bryon Grigsby, who graduated from the university in 1990, said the institution and the city of Bethlehem have always been closely connected.

“We go hand in hand,” Grigsby said. “Since 1742, the educational institution and city have been commingled.”

Grigsby said the space is open for public use and has been attracting interest from the community. He said non-profits in particular have been renting the space to hold their meetings. 

He said students were also involved with the new building’s architecture and design process, similar to how they helped construct the original space. Students raised $600,000 to build the original HUB.

To construct the new building, Grigsby said students worked in focus groups with ESA Architects, a firm based in Nashville, Tennessee, to best optimize the building for student use.

He said students proposed the idea for an ablution room in the religious area for Muslim students to clean themselves before prayer.

Grigsby said one of his favorite features is the Steinway piano on the fourth floor. He said music is central to the Moravian religion and the university’s heritage, so the location of the piano was intentional. 

When Grigsby was a student, he said the original building was considered a cozy space on campus with a fireplace and a mailroom.

He said the acoustics from the piano now reverberate throughout the building, so people can hear the music on each floor. This connection, he said, is a sentimental callback to the original smaller space.

Moravian student trustee Louis Spann, ‘26, said the campus community appreciates having the center fully open again. As a trustee, he sits on the board, contributes to university conversations and votes on motions. 

He said he enjoys seeing Moravian alumni walking through the center on a regular basis. 

Spann also said he spends the majority of his time in the building because it holds the best study spots on campus. 

“It was really a loss to not have the heart of campus for a while,” Spann said. “It’s pretty heartwarming, and it’s just nice to see everyone being together again.”