Senter Hall was completed in 2001 as the White Avenue Biology Annex to provide surge space for functions that had to be relocated to allow Hesler Biology Building to be renovated. The teaching greenhouse, labs, offices, and classrooms were relocated to this facility in the two-phase renovation of Hesler. A second facility, the Neyland Drive Biology Annex was also required for surge space for the functions housed in Hesler. The Neyland facility was meant to be truly temporary, but the White Avenue facility was planned for reuse as the permanent home of the UT Herbaria, previously located in Hesler, but for which the renovated Hesler provided no room, and for UT Libraries’ storage.
In 2009 there was a critical shortage of laboratory space for biological research and UT had applied for a large grant to renovate labs in Walters Life Sciences Building. The decision was made that the quickest and most cost-effective means of acquiring required research space for life sciences for short-term use would be to upgrade the White Avenue facility. Faculty and Facilities Services devised the requirements for the infrastructure, and two labs were provided with multiple hoods to allow short-term occupancy for chemistry research groups.
During the $2,150,000 repurposing of the building, the College of Engineering required space for the lab of a Governor’s Chair and additionally required space for projects needing hoods. Architects for the conversion of the 21,326-square-foot facility were Smee + Busby.
The facility was occupied in spring 2012. When the library addition to the College of Law had been separated from it during the renovation and expansion of the college, the former law library facility had been designated as the White Avenue Building, which caused confusion with the later White Avenue Biology Annex. In 2010 the names of the two buildings were changed. The White Avenue Building became Blount Hall, recalling the chartering of the institution as Blount College. The White Avenue Biology Annex became Senter Hall, named for former Governor DeWitt Clinton Senter. In 1871 Senter cast Tennessee’s first gubernatorial veto of a bill passed by the legislature that would have split the 1862 Morrill Act funds and designation as Tennessee’s land-grant institution into allocations for three institutions.