photo by: Contributed

The University of Kansas is pictured in this September 2021 file photo.

The roof of Wescoe Hall on Jayhawk Boulevard now sports a giant blue “KU.” The new landmark on the University of Kansas campus is 80 feet from top to bottom, and it’s only visible from the air.

The roofing company CentiMark recently put a new roof on Wescoe Hall. When Mark Reiske, KU’s director for facilities, planning & development, found out that the company had done rooftop logos for other clients, he was interested in a KU presence on top of Wescoe, according to a news release from KU.

“There are not many places where you can install this large of a graphic,” Reiske said.

Once the new roof was on Wescoe, CentiMark crews welded square sheets of a thermal plastic material in KU blue to the roof.

“It was a lot of fun to put together,” said Don Fazio, CentiMark senior project manager, in the release. The wordmark was added to the roof at no cost to the university.

“This graphic will be highly visible on Google Earth,” Reiske said.

As for the benefit to the company, Steve Ferencz, CentiMark executive vice president, said it was a good team-building opportunity.

“Once we took the drone photos, (the crew) was really excited about it,” he said in the release.

Moreover, Ferencz is the parent of a KU alumnus and understands the passion Jayhawks have for the university.

“It’s been a challenging year and a half, and this is a pretty neat thing,” he said.