"So we have dedicated study spaces throughout the entire facility to help support our students and their academic careers," a guide says, leading a tour through the spotless corridors of the new residence hall.
The long hallways, complete with kitchens and laundry facilities on every floor — not to mention cell phone notifications when your laundry is done — bear little resemblance to what came before. But the old modernist Kirwan-Blanding towers do live on in framed images on the second floor of the new 649-bed facility.
Mayor Linda Gordon once called the residence hall home as a student.
"At the time, the towers were the tallest buildings in Lexington," she recalls. "I love that (they've) preserved the names."
Kirsten Turner, Vice President for Student Success at UK, says the reopening comes at an opportune time.
"What we've seen coming out of COVID is there used to be a tradition here that a lot of our sophomores and juniors, our returning students, would move off campus. We've actually seen more and more students want to return and live on campus. And so this helps in terms of... providing the opportunity for more returning students to live on campus as well as housing our first-year students," she says.
In just a matter of days, Kirwan-Blanding will welcome what is expected to be one of the largest incoming classes in Kentucky history.