Mitzpeh recently toured the new Hillel’s building progress and saw the features coming in 2026.
Ben Slifkin
The University of Maryland Hillel showcased progress on their new building.The new location is at 7505 Yale Ave., with the Landmark mixed-use student housing to the west, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church to the south, fraternity row to the north, and historical townhouses to the east. The 40,000 square foot building is set to be a significant upgrade in terms of amenities, size and resources. The building has two entrances, with the main one located on Yale Avenue, opposite the Landmark, providing access to the lobby and cafe.Shawn Laing, UMD Hillel’s chief financial and operating officer, said the planned 1500 square foot cafe will be open year-round. The proposed cafe will have a dairy kitchen and expand the Hillel meal plan’s dairy side. The cafe will also feature a new gas-powered pizza oven.The meat counterpart has a much larger area. The two sections are connected through the main lobby, with kitchen staff able to move between them through a back hallway on the north side.(Courtesy of Jess Daninhirsch)The designated meat dining room is three times larger and has an adjacent stage with a projector. Laing said it “doubles as an area performance area for Jewish student groups like Avirah, the Israeli dance group, or Rak Shalom, the Jewish acapella group.” This room will also serve as Hillel’s new multipurpose room.The new building will also include a main conference room. The design has a sliding partition wall, allowing the space to function as one room or two rooms. This room will have desks, chairs and TVs. Hillel’s design prioritizes flexibility, allowing them to adapt spaces as they settle in next year.(Courtesy of Jess Daninhirsch)The 2,500 square foot main dining hall will be the meat dining hall. Hillel consulted rabbis to determine how to accommodate both meat and dairy areas within the same space, while adhering to all standards of observance. This dining room will have a massive curtain wall facing the south facade, which will have 5000 square feet and a Sukkah. The site is in a designated flood zone and UMD Hillel’s plan has already accommodated it. This outside space by the dining room will double as the watershed zone, as the site previously served that purpose.(Courtesy of Jess Daninhirsch)In the lobby, a two-story atrium leads upstairs to the Beit Midrash, offices and prayer rooms. There is also an eight foot by twelve foot ADS compliant elevator updating from the current building’s elevator. The staircase leads up to another gathering space that is designated for “Awkward Hour,” the time between the end of Friday night services and the start of meals. During the week, this space functions as a lounge, with built-in wall depressions to create mini study cubicles nooks. A room, west of the main stairs, will have pool tables. The south side also will have a massive curtain wall that opens onto a rooftop deck, where there will be pavers and additional outdoor seating. This patio also has a staircase leading to the garden.(Courtesy of Jess Daninhirsch)Three prayer rooms will be to the east of the main stairs. The primary one, located in the northeast corner, includes a proposed built-in ark that is 2800 square feet. The secondary space is 1800 square feet has a sliding partition wall to break up the space in two. In the southeastern corner, a staircase provides access directly to the outside. These prayer rooms are also acoustically engineered to preserve vocal strength, which is especially important for Orthodox members who refrain from using electronics during the High Holidays and Sabbath.(Courtesy of Jess Daninhirsch)The Beit Midrash will be on the north facade of the second floor and to the left of the main spaces, totalling 1100 square feet. This space will be able to accommodate three times as many people as the current one, creating a more welcoming environment that encourages learning. Natural light will come in from the north, east and west sides of the spaces. The floor plan of the second level has an extrusion on its north facade, creating an overhang. This design is a significant improvement over the current Beit Midrash, where the few existing windows were often blocked by kudzu or books. This space will feature organized libraries of Jewish books, ranging from history to the Talmud.The west wing of the building is going to house the 1400 square foot offices, ranging from the corner office for Rabbi Israel to other rooms housing up to six work stations for other Hillel employees. Laing spoke on the sizable increase in office space.“With a new bigger building, it requires more operations, so more staff,” Laing said. The new building will also add more amenities in the student pantry in the south western corner, as well as opposite the office space. The timeline is the biggest question on students’ minds. Laing spoke on the latest update for their projections.“The meal plan won’t be open for Spring 2026, but we were hoping we could do the Pesach meal plan here. It all depends on when we can get our certificate of occupancy, food, and building permitting,” Laing said.
