The iconic Mayflower dorm has been home to thousands of University of Iowa residents — some loving the outlying residence while others describing their stay as a prison-like sentence.

For 56 years, the building has housed seemingly endless hallways, cramped elevators, suite-style dormitories, and sat like a beacon to anyone entering Iowa City off Dubuque Street.

But last year, UI officials went forward with a plan that had been in development for years: The 326,000 square foot dormitory went up for sale. They cited the dorm’s mile-long trek to the heart of campus, lower grade point averages among its students, and a poll showing it was the least desired dorm on campus with the most transfers.

The behemothic structure was put on Realtor.com and Zillow, listed by local realtor Jeff Edberg for a cool $45 million. Days went by. Then months. In less than a year, UI officials pulled the contract and took the dorm off the market.

Ultimately, it would be student numbers that determined the UI actually needed the Mayflower back in their flock.

In a recent interview with The Daily Iowan, Von Stange, UI’s senior director of housing and dining, said the decision to keep Mayflower ultimately came when they received record-returning student numbers and the third largest freshman class for fall 2024.

“We saw that, and then we got the report from admissions saying that they were trending up in that as well, and just said, we can’t. There’s too many beds there,” Stange said.

The decision left one big question: How will the university address the problems they already knew existed in the dorm for future students?

Stange said the decision to take the dorm off the market means they will keep it at least until 2029, and they have already begun making changes to the dorm for this year’s Mayflower residents. However, he said there wasn’t much they could do with only six months until a new class moved in.

When did the problems in Mayflower begin?

Construction on Mayflower started on North Dubuque St. in 1965 by a private contractor and was advertised as a luxury apartment complex with a heated indoor pool, saunas, and larger rooms, according to a DI article from the time.

It wasn’t until 1979 that the university set its sights on the building due to overcrowding in other dorms. By 1982 they bought it outright — affording the university a space to house over 1,000 residents.

Since then, the dorm has been remodeled a couple times, once in 1999 and again in 2008 to repair flood damage from the Iowa River. While the facility no longer has a pool on the main floor, or a sauna, the residence hall now contains a gym, small food market, multipurpose room, and a computer lab. Mayflower remains the only dorm on campus with kitchenettes in the rooms.

In February 2023, the UI submitted a report to the Iowa Board of Regents, which governs each of Iowa’s three public universities, outlining their issues with Mayflower. In it, they said it’s the least desired dorm, has the most transfers, and that money from selling the building could go toward a new dorm closer to campus — which they believed could increase student retention rates.

In 2022, a year before Mayflower was put on the market, first-year student retention rates hovered around 87 percent, compared with ISU and UNI with 88 percent and 81 percent respectively.

The retention rates were outlined in the UI’s 2022 to 2027 strategic plan, which states the UI’s goal to raise retention rates to 90 percent by 2027.

Typically, the university claims around 94 percent of first year students live on campus. Vice President for Student Life Sarah Hansen said in a February 2023 Iowa Now article there is a correlation with students who live on campus and their likelihood of returning for a second year.

She went on to say 89 percent of first-year students living in the residence halls return for their second year compared to the 82 percent that comes from students who don’t live on campus. Mayflower is the furthest dorm located  over a mile from the heart of campus. She said that selling Mayflower, along with renovations to Hillcrest and Burge residence Halls, would benefit student outcomes.

After it was determined that Mayflower wasn’t being sold, UI President Barbara Wilson told the DI in May they were considering making Mayflower a dorm just for second-year student students because they are more equipped to live further away.

“I think the vision for Mayflower going forward is to really rethink the footprint of it and create a destination place for second-year students as opposed to first-year students,” Wilson said.

However, this vision has not come to fruition — at least for now, Stange said. There are more first-year students living in the dorm than second years for the 2024-25 academic year. As of Aug. 19, he said there are 826 residents living in Mayflower this year with 150 to 200 consisting of returning students.

Stange said that number falls in line with the amount of students in the building in past years.

Ultimately, he said they made the decision to keep first-year students in the dorm because many students wanted to live in Mayflower and taking away that choice would not be fair.

“It would be difficult for us to be able to make that building just second-year students or returning students, because students have a choice,” Stange said.

What are students saying?

In terms of what students think of Mayflower, it’s a mixed bag.

For those who dislike Mayflower, their main arguments center around its distance from campus, building maintenance, and inconsistent elevators that seemingly take students to any floor but their own.

Emma Baele, a former UI student who lived in Mayflower last year, said she enjoyed the room size, but she would have multiple issues on the elevators. One such instance was when she went to visit her friend on the seventh floor. She said the elevator stopped — for no reason — at the third, fourth, and fifth floor before finally reaching its destination.

“It took an extra three minutes on the elevator, plus the amount of time that it took to wait for it to, like, register, to go down to the base floor,” Baele said.

She also said the distance from campus became problematic for her — especially in the winter.

Baele said there were days it was hard to get out of bed because she knew she had a cold journey ahead of her just to get to class. After multiple weeks of getting on a packed bus or walking in freezing temperatures, the thought of missing class became more and more appealing.

The most prominent thing Baele noticed, however, was how many people moved out of the building during the year.

“As the semester went on, the number just kept on going down with people, like, moving to different dorms, or people transferring,” Baele said.

The people who like Mayflower have said the building has a strong sense of community and larger room sizes. Plus, they note the access to parking makes it a desirable dorm.

RELATED: ‘A bittersweet moment’: Past residents reflect on Mayflower Hall after the UI  announces plans to close the dorm

Avery Hoppert, a first-year UI student living in Mayflower, said her biggest gripe with the building is its distance — particularly because of the bus system.

In Mayflower, buses come on rotation every 15 minutes. Hoppert said the buses become extremely congested in the morning, which Hoppert said runs the risk of being a straggler waiting 15 minutes for the next bus. However, she said that Mayflower’s larger suite-style rooms made her transition to college easier because it was more like what she was used to at home.

“It wasn’t necessarily my first choice, but now that I look at it now I’m very glad that I ended up where I did, because I really like how much space I have and the community I’m in,” Hoppert said. “I really like it.”

Arden Hallett, a third-year student and student custodian at Mayflower last year, said she has spent hours vacuuming the hallways carpets during which time she sensed an issue with the community on the floors. She said she rarely saw people interacting with each other and it gave the dorm a sad energy.

“The dorm is just sad,” Hallett said. “I think compared to the other dorms, there’s less of a communal vibe. Like the common spaces were pretty empty.”

Madeline Dunsbergen, a first-year student living in Mayflower, echoed Hallett’s assessment and said the distance from campus has made it harder to form connections in college.

“All my friends live in the dorms that are on campus, and then it’s annoying, like having to take the bus, or if it’s like, later in the day, then you have to plan ahead about that too,” Dunsbergen said.

Nick Theuerkauf is a third-year student who lived in Daum his first year, but he said he’s been to Mayflower many times to visit friends. To him, the dorm seemed deteriorated.

“It seems like they’re just very run down, like there are cracks in the walls — it gave off a very much, like, post-Soviet vibe,” Theurkauf said.

There are those who have said Mayflower does foster a great community because people get to spend more time together when they are further from campus.

Susan Presto, a UI alum and former Mayflower resident, who went on to work at the UI as the assistant director of student life and engagement, said in an email to the DI that Mayflower’s community helped encourage her to continue working for the university.

“My experience in Mayflower helped shape me as a student affairs professional, it helped lay the foundation of my career. I feel like I have come full circle in the sense that Mayflower was my first experience working with Living Learning Communities, and now I oversee all of our Living Learning Communities,” Presto wrote.

 What changes are they making?

Now that the dorm is back in service, the UI has begun renovating the hall’s floors, expanding dining options, and adding more social areas, Stange said. However, he said there is only so much money they can put into the building.

So far, the UI has reconfigured four student rooms on each of the seven floors into a study and lounge space.

He said this change cost the university just under $100,000. Any renovation more than $100,000 forces the UI to hold a bid for the project, Stange said. This way, they could make the change quickly with students coming in August.

The new lounges took about 50 beds offline. He said they are still waiting for new furniture for the rooms. Right now, according to students living in the dorm, there are only a few chairs and a table in the lounges.

In order to give students at Mayflower more food options, the UI had their food truck, the Street Hawk, add a stop outside Mayflower every Wednesday from 5-7 p.m. But the first-weeks steaming start threw a wrench in that schedule, as it was too hot to come the first week, Stange said.

There are other food additions including new coffee machines and hot food options like walking tacos, which are standard at other food markets across campus.

In the future, Stange said they plan to replace the carpet in each of the rooms with a luxury vinyl tile, and replace the appliances in the room’s kitchenettes. They also want to relocate some other areas of the building, including the fitness center.

The gym will move to a central part of Mayflower, similar to Catlett, instead of “in the back corner” of the building, he said.

Stange also said that they learned students in Mayflower attend supplemental instruction at higher rates than other students. Because of this, UI officials want to have academic advising come out to the dorm a couple times a semester.

Stange said he recognizes some students don’t choose to live in Mayflower, so they’ve cut the room rates for doubles by 6.8 percent. This equates to a $560 discount for double rooms.

“The rationale behind that was there were students there who did not choose to be there, we had to place them there. And so not only did they not want to be there, then we asked them to pay more in order to live there, and we decided that’s not right,” Stange said.

Looking forward

Rod Lehnertz, UI senior vice president and university architect, said the improvements they’ve made so far are minimal, but they are looking to hear from students.

“We want to know from the boots on the ground: What works? What doesn’t? What do you like about it? What didn’t you like about it? And let’s find the physical ways and program ways to erase the things you didn’t like about it, because there are things to like about it,” Lehnertz said.

He said there are still some pending maintenance items they want to address and new ways to make students enjoy Mayflower. But he also said the community has thrived in the dorm, and there are many reasons to love it.

He thinks the dorm does foster a close community and looking forward, the UI should look at the advantages of the dorm rather than its disadvantages to make it a better place to foster student growth.

“It is an island, yes, but it is also a close community,” Lehnertz said. “I think those are some of the things that can accent how it can be its best, and a target location.”

Stange said Mayflower can get a bad reputation for how far it is from campus, but anyone who lives there will get a traditional college experience.

“Your experience of living on campus is not dictated by the name on the outside of the building, but by the people you meet on the inside,” Stange said. “Whatever building you’re in, if you give it a fair shot, you’re going to find your closest friends and your best experiences are going to be there.”

Kate Perez contributed to this report