For the lucky residents of Mayer Hall, laundry troubles may be a thing of the past.
Penn officials and representatives from Mac-Gray Corporation, the company that manages Penn's laundry services, officially opened the newly renovated laundry room in Stouffer House's Mayer Hall last night.
Mac-Gray officials installed 16 new washers and dryers, added seating and counter areas and installed new flooring and lighting units.
The price - $1.25 per cycle per machine - will not change.
Officials also repainted and hooked up the laundry room to a system named LaundryView that allows students to check the status of their clothes and availability of machines electronically after logging on to a Web site.
"LaundryView is relatively new technology," Brian Dougherty, a representative from Mac-Gray corporation, wrote in an e-mail. "It is currently installed on more than 100 other college and university campuses and has been hailed by virtually all students using it as a real time-saver."
Dougherty added that the new machines are more energy efficient, saving 50 percent more water and holding 32 percent more laundry than the older machines because they "are more effective at extracting water in the spin cycle, which reduces dry time and saves energy."
Although officials would not say how much the renovations cost Mac-Gray, Dougherty called the project "substantial."
Other campus laundry rooms could end up getting similar renovations in the future, pending contractual changes, officials say.
Mac-Gray offered to renovate a laundry room to demonstrate the technological features and services they could provide if the University renews their contract with the company in July 2008, Housing and Conference Services spokeswoman Dana Matkevich wrote in an e-mail.
"The high rises are already undergoing extensive renewal, so we wanted to focus on some of the other buildings," she said. "Mayer was chosen because it has a larger population and has a fairly large laundry room."
Although plans for renovating other laundry rooms around campus are still being discussed, Matkevich said this project will "afford us the opportunity to see what advancements can be made and how best to proceed in the upcoming laundry contract."
Students like Wharton freshman Whitney Smart said she liked the new changes because "now you can check your laundry and people won't have to dump your clothes on the floor."
"It's more convenient, and the new labels also make it easier for other people who may not know how to do laundry," said Smart, who is living in Mayer Hall next year.
Undergraduate Assembly member and College freshman Claire Choi also approved of the changes and said MacGray "hit the nail right on the head."
"Now they know what needs to be done and we hope to see other laundry rooms renovated like this one," she said.
