Sellery Hall will be location for Amazon package pickup
Sellery Residence Hall, in the southeast campus neighborhood, will have an Amazon package pickup location in fall 2017. Photo: University Housing
The University of Wisconsin–Madison will establish an Amazon pickup location at Sellery Residence Hall, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Laurent Heller said today.
The Amazon pickup location was originally planned for the historic Red Gym building, but that decision was revisited after hearing concerns about the impact on a variety of student organizations and programs. The pickup location will not impact current living and learning areas. It is expected to open in fall 2017.
Laurent Heller
“We listened to the concerns from building occupants in the Red Gym and our broader campus community, and decided that a change in location would be appropriate,” Heller says. “The Sellery Hall location is convenient for many students who will be using the Amazon service and, as it turns out, a better space for the distribution of parcels. We continue to strongly believe this project will be a benefit to the university and campus community.”
UW-Madison students, faculty and staff are heavy users of Amazon and other online retailers.
The establishment of a campus pickup location should minimize delivery traffic and simplify package delivery. It also ensures that students receive the packages that they have ordered, which is frequently a problem with locked or unstaffed apartments and houses.
Heller says an agreement between UW–Madison and Amazon will generate revenue for investment in the university’s public mission. Under the agreement, Amazon will pay UW–Madison roughly $600,000 over five years.
The agreement will go to the UW System Board of Regents for approval in April.
Amazon has entered into similar agreements with other universities, including Purdue University; University of Massachusetts Amherst; University of California, Berkeley; University of Pennsylvania; University of Texas at Austin; University of California, Davis; Georgia Institute of Technology; California State University, Long Beach; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Illinois at Chicago; University of California, San Diego; and Stony Brook University.