Georgia State has the eighth ugliest college campus in America, according to Complex.com, an online-based magazine that created this year’s top 50 ugliest colleges list.
Although Georgia State’s campus may look like a concrete mammoth, the University is taking steps to make the campus more appealing to future residents.
In Georgia State’s review, Complex pointed out many flaws around campus, such as its “non-cohesive” plan and lack of a central campus.
“The school sees a lot of crime from the surrounding city area,” the review read. “Some students have gone so far as to refer to the school as a glorified high school.”
Junior philosophy major Ayesha Kirk believes that Georgia State’s campus is in need of some major upgrades, especially in landscaping and sustainability.
“It looks like we’re in a prison,” she said. “I feel that we are in need of an updated plaza because the current design looks really depressing.”
Yet, recent additions to campus, including the new law building at 25 Park Place building and adjacent property around Woodruff, hope to revive the university’s expanding infrastructure and downtown presence.
In an effort to make the campus more aesthetically appealing, Kell Hall will be demolished to make place for a “greenway” in the middle of Georgia State’s campus. The greenway is expected to be completed by the summer of 2018.
“We need green space at the core of our campus to achieve this vision for lawns and public areas that will for the first time give our University community inviting and attractive areas,” President Becker said in the State of the University Address on Oct. 2.
Moreover, the destruction of Kell Hall will eliminate some of the old concrete and brick making up the majority of the campus, while the new greenway will attempt to modernize Georgia State’s traditional look.
“Because of where we are in downtown Atlanta, there’s really not much we can do to make it look like a traditional campus,” Susan McMahon said. “I mean the whole kinda feel down here is non-traditional. Walking to class you walk by people going to work and homeless people. It’s not even really our campus, we share it.”
Senior computer science major Jazmine Jackson is also pretty excited about the upcoming renovations to Kell Hall. She commented on the transition from Kell Hall to a new greenway and Georgia State’s expanding downtown presence.
“Kell Hall is scary to me,” Jackson said. “I think that that this new green area will make the campus more pretty. The only other thing I can think about changing on the campus is cleaning up Woodruff Park.”
