Emery Barns renovation in the works

Business class brainstorms plans for barns

Imagine a place on campus where students could go to find a café, a sports bar, a concert stage and even a movie theater.

In two years, such a place might be a reality thanks to a few dedicated students, faculty and staff. The Emery Barns, which were given to Berry in 1915 by Thomas Emery, formerly held mules and show cattle and are located behind the Ladd Center. Now, the Pimp My Barn group, a group of students in Associate Professor of Management Paula Englis’s small business management class, have created a plan to renovate the Emery Barns into a recreational student complex.

The Emery Barns project first came to Englis’s attention through Dean of Students Debbie Heida during the spring of 2007. Heida was looking for a group of students to create a business plan for a late night attraction on campus. She then developed the idea of a new recreational complex as part of a mission to “create spaces that draw students to each other,” Heida said.

Leaving a legacy
The Pimp My Barn group, which includes seniors Hal McCool, Samantha Wilkins, Helen Preston and Eric Cone, took on the project “to leave a legacy behind when they graduate in spring 2008,” according to Englis.

The group has incorporated Berry students’ opinions as much as possible through forums and surveys.

“The most recent survey has the students voting for the barns to first be a coffee house and sports bar and secondly be a stage or nightclub,” McCool said.

A forum held on the subject of the Emery Barns showed that there was a large group of students that felt the barns should be kept as much in their original condition as possible. The Pimp My Barn group agreed with this idea and even talked about creating the café out of old wood that had to be taken from the barn. Another idea expressed at the forum was that the Emery Barns, when complete, should be run entirely by students through the student work program.

Cafe and sports bar on tap
The Pimp My Barn group’s plan includes creating a café and sports bar on the first floor, along with several billiard tables, ping pong tables, TVs, comfortable sofas and chairs and grills on a patio for students to use.

The group’s plan for the second level would feature a stage big enough for an acoustic or soft rock group, such as singer-songwriter Jack Johnson. The upstairs would also contain a movie theater that seats 20 people. Students would be able to rent out the theater in three hour time blocks. To top it all off, there would be study rooms, complete with wireless internet access, for students wanting to study.

{A.P.}