The Wintrode Center, also known as the Student Success and Opportunity Center on the south side of the South Dakota State University campus is being renovated and will serve as the well-being center on campus. 

The building was built in 1960 as a Methodist Student Center and in 2007, it became the Wintrode Center. In 2010, renovation started with the total cost of it being $1.5 million. $116,000 of that went towards general classrooms.

The fundraising for the new well-being center began in 2017 and the project started construction in 2019 but COVID presented challenges. 

“The project has been slowed since then due to the lack of funding and COVID-19,” Luke Witte, project manager, said. “Construction started back up in 2023.” 

The total estimated cost is $2.7 million with $150,000 in project contingency (extra funds put away in case of an emergency). 

There will be no expansion to the building, but the footprint will change and there will be an exterior finish insulation system. 

Everything will be changed on the inside, besides some of the offices. 

“They won’t go away, they will just be getting an update,” Witte said. Clark Drew Construction, out of Brookings has been working on the building Monday through Friday since October of last year. 

“Demo work is being done now,” Witte said. “Framing walls, mechanical and electrical IP, cutting new windows in the exterior and glazing the exterior.” 

Holes in the building is something a passerby may notice. The larger aluminum storefront windows that are being installed will give the building more natural light. The holes on the south side will bring more light into the mobile classroom. Other noticeable holes will be newly updated windows for the building, with the exception of an access door on the second level of the north side for maintenance of rooftop equipment, Witte said. 

Construction is expected to be completed in June and the SDSU counseling and human resource development program will move in before the beginning of the fall semester. The newly renovated building will include offices for all counseling and human resource development faculty, active learning classroom and lecture space, a student lounge, and Practicum (practice counseling rooms). 

“The practicum rooms are spaces for CHRD graduate students to apply what they are learning in courses into a clinical experience under the supervision of faculty members,” Anne Karabon, director of the School of Education, Counseling, and Human Development, said. “In addition to individual counseling practicum rooms, the renovated building will have a family/couples therapy and a play practicum rooms.” 

At the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, the first year advising as well as all tutoring and supplemental instruction programs that were once held in the Wintrode Center, moved to the lower level of Wagner Hall. 

“The Wintrode Center was not being utilized to its full potential,” Witte said. “It worked out because the Counseling and Resource Development program needed a space for their well-being center.”

 The current well-being center is in Wenona Hall.