The College has begun a more than $3-million renovation project in the Garden Apartments, to be completed by late summer 2008.

The plans call for the installation of new geothermal wells to provide efficient heating and air conditioning. Bathtubs will be replaced with showers, more single bedrooms will be created, and kitchens will be removed from most apartments, since students tend to utilize the campus meal plan instead of cook their own food.

When the Garden Apartments opened in 1974, the kitchens were the feature that students most wanted, according to Carl Gold ’78, a Towson attorney who lived in the apartments for the first three years after they opened.

“The kitchens were great,” said Gold. “You could make a pizza at 3 a.m. or invite a girl over to make her dinner. We used to pool the money we would have otherwise paid in the dining hall and instead made lobster and steak.”

Back then, students set up grills and held parties on the grassy areas around the buildings.

“There was a sense of it being its own neighborhood community,” said Jean DiBlasio ’76, who lived in the apartments as a senior. “It was its own little world where people were very friendly and connected and went back and forth between the apartments.”

Opened in 1974, the three four-story buildings were constructed on Pennsylvania Avenue. Each apartment had two double bedrooms, living room, dining area, kitchen and air-conditioning.

When the apartments opened, the College’s enrollment stood at 1,250. The renovation will expand the number of students who can live in the apartments from 96 to 108. Additionally, the plans call for new windows and flooring, the addition of powder rooms, and the creation of atrium-style entranceways.

In 1974, as now, the plans focus on enhancing the College’s living and learning community so that students form lasting bonds through education, collaboration and friendship.

“I still keep in touch with some of my roommates,” says DiBlasio. “One was a clean freak who we laughed at because of her lists and schedules. But I took that with me for life. She trained me and got me to appreciate how to take care of a place. I have higher standards to this day after spending a year living with her.”