After closures, no inspections slated for residence halls serving WKU students
Published 7:54 am Sunday, July 20, 2025
DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ
david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com
The foundation that owns Western Kentucky University’s residence halls as of June appeared to have no plans for additional inspections following the closure of three residence halls designed by the same firm.
In May, the nonprofit Student Life Foundation – which owns the residence halls serving Western students and has operational decisions made by its board, according to WKU – had announced that Hilltopper Hall, temporarily closed in early 2024, would be demolished after structural analysis revealed “widespread design and construction flaws.” Two residence halls built after Hilltopper Hall, Normal and Regents, were also closed temporarily due to not meeting the commonwealth’s commercial occupancy standards, SLF announced.
All three were overseen by Bowling Green-based firm Sewell & Sewell Architects. One other set of apartments serving WKU students is listed under the same firm on its website: the WKU Apartments on Kentucky Street. While those apartments have avoided public scrutiny for any issues, Sewell & Sewell does list those apartments in its portfolio, and no inspections appear planned at this time.
An attorney for SLF, Tad Pardue, said last month he was not aware of ongoing or scheduled inspections at residence halls aside from those that are part of completing repairs at Normal and Regents halls. Purdue added that he isn’t “aware of any inspections of the Kentucky Street Apartments by SLF.”
Sewell & Sewell Architects is the primary target of a lawsuit SLF filed in May 2024 for its work on Hilltopper Hall and a lack of cooperation following requests for information, according to lawsuit documents. The documents allege that “SLF discovered errors and omissions in the professional services Sewell provided for the project” and allege that the firm had multiple breaches of contract concerning project design and construction, with Sewell & Sewell Architects denying allegations.
SLF’s May announcement of its demolition stated that repair of the building, previously estimated to cost $40 million, is infeasible.
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As of May, Regents and Normal halls didn’t seem to share Hilltopper Hall’s same significant structural issues, according to SLF’s May announcement. But SLF’s precautionary study of the former two halls, commissioned in spring, found ceilings needing replacement to comply with building code, and the first and second floors needing bracing installed for resistance against high winds and seismic activity, the announcement stated.
Hilltopper Hall housed 400 students. Normal Hall housed 260 students, while Regents Hall housed 375, and closure of the two required shifts across fall housing assignments estimated to affect roughly 1,000 students, according to the announcement.
The 1355 Kentucky Street Apartments had their ribbon cut 11 years ago, opening with a maximum occupancy of 222 apartments.
WKU, which owns and operates a separate set of buildings from SLF, stated that it has its routine inspections on campus buildings, with no additional inspections currently underway or planned “because the university has no reason to believe that the safety of any university-owned building may be compromised.”
The one exception, stated WKU, would be the Faculty House, which is undergoing an inspection to determine if repairs are feasible.
For WKU, Sewell & Sewell Architects had designed the building that previously housed the Confucius Institute, and the McChesney Fieldhouse as WKU’s McChesney Field Campus, according to the university. Both are small, single-story structures, unlike the residence halls, and the former has spent years vacant with no current plans for occupancy, WKU stated.
