“I understand this stinks,” said Randy Alexander, director of the Department of Residence, after a meeting Friday about the closing of Helser Hall this fall.

“I’ve been signed up for a month,” said Todd Brady, sophomore in computer science, “And you just close a building.”

Brady and his Brown House roommate, Lukas Shea, freshman in mechanical engineering, were scheduled to live in Helser Hall next year but are concerned they won’t be able to find a new room together now.

“See if it will work first,” said Thomas Hill, vice president for student affairs, offering Brady and Shea a chance to revisit their grievance if they can’t secure viable living arrangements elsewhere in the Union Drive Association.

Hill said Friday’s meeting was a good time to explain the university’s perception of the issue to about half of the 163 students who will be displaced by the shuttering of Helser.

“We’re going to do everything we can to accommodate them,” he said. “The thing we can’t do is keep Helser.”

The returnees have the option of moving anywhere in Friley Hall or the Richardson Court Association (except Maple Hall) at the same non-air-conditioned rate they would have paid at Helser Hall. Willow Hall, Larch Hall and parts of Friley Halls are air-conditioned.

However, students will have to pay normal rates for any other spot in the residence system they want. Breaching the residence hall contract at this point would cost a Helser Hall resident a $125 prepayment.

“We’re not allowed to buck the contract without losing money,” Shea said. “So basically, all we get is last choice.”

Brady said he felt Alexander wasn’t interested in materially addressing his concerns.

“It didn’t feel like he was trying to compromise anything at all,” he said. “It’s going to be so hard for us to get a room together.”

Alexander said Helser is like most of the other communities at Iowa State in that a building’s or systems’ residents tend to bond together.

He cited the Towers Residence Association, which new students tend to shun, as an example.

“Once students move out there, they love it,” he said.

Louden House, on Helser’s second floor, is another such community, its residents said. The group held a house meeting Friday night to plan a mass move into Stange House in Friley Hall and parties Saturday and Sunday to celebrate their community.

“A lot of what made us a community was having the doors open,” said Owen Koch, sophomore in computer engineering. “All the small groups are really closely tied.”

Koch said smaller clusters of Louden residents have similar interests but still identify themselves primarily with the house.

Floor president Jonathan Shipley, sophomore in aerospace engineering, said the open doors, to him, was an important allure of Helser Hall.

“I don’t see a lot of doors open [elsewhere],” he said. “I live here for the community, personally.”

Shipley said the floor had originally intended to leave some money from its budget for next year. Now, its members have decided to spend its funds now, spending much of Friday’s meeting voting on drinks to get for the parties.

Last year, when upperclassmen were concerned about being subject to restrictions of the Fresh Start program put in place in Helser Hall and throughout the Union Drive Association, Shipley said he appreciated the Department of Residence working with those students to make the requirements of Fresh Start less intrusive.

Now, the sudden decision has soured him somewhat.

“This really kind of makes my opinion go down of them,” he said. “From the way it looks from Step Inside tonight, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to keep everybody together.”`