Kansas City college says new dorm’s food is so good, public is invited to dine there

Chefs at Kansas City Art Institute’s Wylie Dining Center fired up the giant brick pizza oven there this week for the first time. Before long they pulled out the inaugural pie.

Tony Jones, president of the art institute, was eager to try it. “Mmm. … Crunchy crust.”

So good, Jones said, he expects area residents will join students and faculty on a regular basis and pay to eat at the dining center — inside the college’s newly constructed residence hall.

Dorm food? Yup.

College grub is not the cafeteria experience of old — mystery meats and casseroles. Students want restaurant quality, and colleges trying to boost enrollment are accommodating. At some schools, food service has risen to the level of cage-free eggs, grass-fed meats and sustainable seafood cooked to order.

So while the art institute was trying to attract students, it figured why not also open its dining hall and adjoining cafe to the community?

Wylie Dining Center has six food stations serving a variety of cuisines, such as Asian and Mexican, plus deli, salads, grilled burgers and vegetarian. Customers can even get their pizza made with a sweet potato crust.

It’s exactly this level of service, demanded by students and their parents, that led the Kansas City Art Institute to build its new residence hall with a state-of-the-art dining facility and a cafe.

After 18 months of cranes, bulldozers, blocked streets and construction along Warwick Boulevard, near the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, the new $30 million dorm opens to students when they return to campus for the spring semester later this month.

The name of the building will be unveiled at a special ceremony on Wednesday. An open house, for the public to see the space, is set for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

Luring students

Replacing the school’s nearly 50-year old Student Living Center was a strategic decision that art institute officials hope will not only bring the community on campus but, more importantly, will help increase the school’s enrollment of almost 700 students. The target is at least 750.

It’s no secret that enrollment is the financial bread and butter for higher education institutions. But as the number of high school graduates nationally dips, colleges across the country must select students from an ever shrinking pool. So schools look for whatever edge they can to attract students to their campus.

University of Missouri opened two new dorms on the south edge of the Columbia campus just last year, and this year will open a third. But what MU has really done to boost enrollment is lower the cost of living on campus.

Kansas State University built its newest residence hall in 2016 but is currently renovating one of its main dining halls.

Rockhurst University has added two buildings in recent years and just started big renovations on another. While university officials said the new construction primarily ensures students get the best educational opportunities, “it definitely doesn’t hurt to have new facilities when families come to tour,” said Katherine Frohoff, university spokeswoman.

“It’s competitive. It’s a challenge,” said Nicolle Ratliff, a spokeswoman for the art institute. “One of the biggest impediments for us was our residence hall.”

She said students and their families would visit the 16-acre campus, which sits just off the popular Country Club Plaza. “They would love what we have to offer here but then see the residence hall and go, ‘hmmm.’ The residence hall did not reflect the college experience they were having here, so it was really time for KCAI to build something. And we are excited about it.”

The old Student Living Center, which was actually two buildings — a men’s dorm and a women’s dorm connected by a walkway — is being gutted and will be converted into studio and academic space for the institute’s fastest growing areas: animation and illustration.

Open to the community

The new four-story residence hall was financed with a bond issue plus a capital campaign. It has a modern look, including brightly colored panels representing the four seasons along the exterior, not keeping with the traditional red brick structures that had dominated the campus.

Its front entrance is just inside the institute’s main gate at 44th Street and Warwick Boulevard. That location is fitting, school officials said. It’s sandwiched by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art on one side and the Nelson-Atkins on the other. People often walk through the campus to and from the museums.

Jones referred to the museums on either side as the exhibit halls while the institute is the “making space” — “two showrooms and a factory.”

Visitors to the building first enter Cafe Nerman, which connects to the main dining center and serves coffee, pastry and deli sandwiches to whoever stops in.

“Just because we have a set of gates does not mean that we are a gated community,” Jones said.

But the dining hall is as far as the public can go. The rest of the building is key card entry only.

Beyond the dining space, the first floor presents a lot of firsts for the campus, including a laundry room that’s free to students, a full-scale fitness center and a student union full of lounging chairs, meeting rooms, performance spaces and a fireplace. The union is named for donors John Sherman, who owns the Kansas City Royals, and his wife, Marny Sherman.

Rooms are on the second, third and fourth floors. The old living center housed 180 students. The new building has 233 beds in rooms that are either doubles or quads, because that’s what students asked for. Most residents are freshmen, who are required to live on campus unless they commute from less than 30 miles away.

Jones said students had a say in major aspects, such as loading the building with “as much broadband as you can give us,” Jones said he was told.

Each room is double the size of the old dorm rooms. And throughout the building, including residence area hallways, there is designated space for art to be displayed. On the fourth floor is a student gallery.

The residence hall is the first of two new buildings opening on the campus this year. This spring the institute is set to open the Paul and Linda DeBruce Hall, an 18,000-square-foot building at 44th and Oak streets. That building will house art history, liberal arts, entrepreneurial studies and the Ronald Cattelino Center for Student Services.

Dining hours

Hours for the Wylie Dining Center: breakfast 7:30 to 9:15 a.m. weekdays, lunch 11 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. weekdays and dinner 4:45 to 6:15 p.m. daily. On Saturday and Sunday, brunch is served 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The price for all you can eat is $7.50 plus tax.

This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.

Mará Rose Williams

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4419

Mará Rose Williams is The Star’s Senior Opinion Columnist. She previously was assistant managing editor for race & equity issues, a member of the Star’s Editorial Board and an award-winning columnist. She has written on all things education for The Star since 1998, including issues of inequity in education, teen suicide, universal pre-K, college costs and racism on university campuses. She was a writer on The Star’s 2020 “Truth in Black and White” project and the recipient of the 2021 Eleanor McClatchy Award for exemplary leadership skills and transformative journalism.