New Starbucks is biggest for U.S. colleges
August 24, 2015
By Ella Wilkie
UK holds several titles ranging from academics to athletics, and now it can boast being home to the largest Starbucks on a college campus in the country.
The Starbucks at W.T. Young Library is no stranger to traffic. Kendall Pennington, a sophomore business major, said the location and popularity of the small coffee shop brought unwelcome chaos, especially during finals week.
“Last year it was really small and it took a long time to get through the line,” Pennington said.
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Chloe McMullen, an integrated strategic communications sophomore, said that the new layout is more conducive to an academic environment.
“There’s a lot of room to get studying done,” McMullen said.
The $1.5 million renovation includes a sitting area with UK-themed wooden tables and chairs. A lounge occupies the second half of the room with leather couches and chairs.
A hallway once prevented entrance and sectioned off the dining area from the rest of the library. Now, students will notice an archway that leads directly into it.
“We selected the wall where the opening … kind of goes to an area where there is only one table,” Penny Cox, UK’s Director of Housing Project Implementation and New Strategies, said in response to concern about sound traveling to the library through the new opening. “The first people you get to is (those) at the reception desk.”
Lily Fields, a freshman pre-dietetics major, said she has visited the renovated Starbucks “more frequently than (she) should have” since arriving at UK two weeks early for sorority recruitment.
“The new Starbucks is a nice and spacious place to get coffee, hang out or study,” Fields said. “It’s one of the many places that I’ve been looking forward to seeing once I got to UK.”
