The $15 million renovations to the old Maple-Willow-Larch dining center are 65 percent finished, according to facilities planning and management.

The dining hall, which closed last May, will reopen in August as a renovated dining center named Seasons Marketplace.

A key attribute of Seasons, dinner will be available on Sunday nights beginning next August.

“What we’re excited about is that there’s now going to be a Sunday night dinner at Iowa State starting in the fall,” said Nancy Levandowski, director of ISU Dining.

The Sunday night dinner gives students 21 meal opportunities every week, Levandowski said.

“We’ve added a meal because if [students] want breakfast early on Saturday morning they can go to Union Drive Marketplace and if they want Sunday night dinner they can go to Seasons,” she said.

The dining experience will also boast six different food stations, according to the ISU Dining Web site. Stations will include Olive Branch, Hickory’s, Bonsais, Wood Grill, Bushel Basket and Breakfast Nook & Cocoa Bean.

The company contractor for the project is Miron Construction. Miron also built East Side Market in MWL and several other buildings on campus.

The design professional for the project is Ken Stirm. Mike Parsons, construction manager with facilities planning and management, oversees construction of the project.

The new MWL dining center is an Occupy Project because the public lives near the construction site. This close proximity can make the project challenging, Parsons said.

Students who want to get a feel for how Seasons Marketplace will look can get a good idea from East Side Market, said Brittney Rutherford, communications specialist for ISU Dining.

“It’s really good the C-store is done because you can kind of see what’s coming. Not exact, but you can definitely see what is in store,” Rutherford said. “The look and feel of the C-store will be complimentary to the look and feel of Seasons.”

Levandowski said one of the new food items at Seasons Marketplace will be a smoker at Hickory’s for smoking meat.

“Hickory’s will have a smoker and we’ll be doing carved meats,” Levandowski said. “We’ll be doing sandwiches and things like that, so we’re very excited about that.”

One problem with the old MWL dining center was its lack of lighting, Levandowski said.

“With the new build-out we’ve added a lot of glass windows to bring light into the facility,” Levandowski said. “But we haven’t taken away that community, and that was important.”

These features, from another meal to more products, put the focus on what students like, Levandowski said.

“The flow will be better and I think it allows us the opportunity to feature things for people in a better place,” Levandowski said.

“The difference between [Seasons] and Maple Willow Larch’s dining hall is night and day. The difference between this and the Union Drive Marketplace is that this will be somewhat more intimate and smaller.”

The theme for Seasons Marketplace parallels the experiences students have at Iowa State, Levandowski said.

“Students come to us and it’s like the new season of their life, they’re starting college and as time goes by they grow,” Levandowski said.

“We kind of see that as what Seasons is. We’re playing off of that in the seasons of a student’s life as well as the development of them.”

Giving the east side of campus an opportunity to have its own dining center is what is most exciting, Levandowski said.

“This is an opportunity for the east sided campus to have their home and they haven’t had that,” Levandowski said.

“We’ve seen a higher attendance at Union Drive Marketplace because there’s a perceived value.”

Having value for the east side of campus is the goal, Levandowski said.