A screenshot of a video the university facilities team took shows steam filling an underground tunnel that houses a failing high temperature hot water pipe system that services multiple buildings across campus.
By: Mary Beth Almond | Rochester Post | Published November 17, 2025
ROCHESTER — Oakland University will be closed Nov. 21-30 to allow crews to make emergency repairs to the high temperature hot water pipe system, which serves many facilities across campus.
OU Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Mackey said that the university discovered a leak in the hot water pipe system — an underground loop that supplies heat to every main campus building — in the parking lot between Fitzgerald House, O’Dowd Hall and the OU Credit Union O’Rena.
“When it first started leaking, it was leaking about 6,000 gallons a day. Now that it’s gotten colder, it’s leaking 9,000 gallons a day,” Mackey said in a Nov. 17 interview. “If it gets much cooler, we’re not sure it’s going to hold.”
After investigating the failure and coming up with a plan for repairs, university officials notified the campus community days later in a Nov. 10 email, noting that the repairs are “urgent.”
“Ideally, we would have waited until the normal university closure at the end of the semester,” Mackey said. “But unfortunately, we can’t wait that long, because the colder it gets, the more the risk goes up of a catastrophic failure.”
If there is a pipe system failure before the campus closure begins, Mackey said plans for immediate repairs will be shared with the campus community.
The planned closure, which overlaps with Thanksgiving week, will cancel all in-person classes and close most university offices and facilities. University officials said faculty may decide to hold classes virtually, as long as they notify students by Nov. 17. Clinical classes off-campus, PACE (Professional and Continuing Education) online classes, and essential university operations will continue as scheduled.
Students who live in university housing have been instructed to check their emails for more information.
“We’re housing everybody who is going to be on campus, so nobody is going to be homeless, nobody is going to be kicked out with nowhere to go or sleeping in their cars or anything like that,” Mackey said. “They will all have rooms, because some of the dorm buildings that we have are not on this central system, so we are able to relocate people to the buildings that still have heat. So, our international students for example, they don’t have anywhere else to stay, so we made that accommodation. We’re also providing food service as well.”
Meadow Brook Theatre and the OU Recreation Center will remain open until 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21. However, the closure will affect 10 performances of “A Christmas Carol” Nov. 22-Nov. 30 at Meadow Brook Theatre.
Meadow Brook Theatre is honoring all tickets bought for the canceled performances and is exchanging the tickets for any other performance of “A Christmas Carol” at no additional charge to the ticket holders.
“We are saddened that any of the performances of A Christmas Carol are being affected, and the box office will be working with our patrons to find a new date to attend,” Cheryl Marshall, managing director of Meadow Brook Theatre, said in a prepared statement. “We know some patrons have received a cancellation notice from Ticketmaster, so please contact the box office to get your ticket reissued.”
The Meadow Brook Theatre Box Office can be reached at (248) 377-3300.
Scheduled performances will resume Dec. 3 and continue to run through Dec. 24 at Meadow Brook Theatre, a professional theatre located on the campus of Oakland University in Rochester.
For more information about Meadow Brook Theatre, visit mbtheatre.com or call (248) 377-3300.