RPS moves forward on new dorm construction

What’s all that noise?

Two related construction projects are underway on campus along Third Street, all in an effort to improve the living experience in the Southeast Neighborhood.

On South Rose Avenue, a new apartment complex is being built for Residential Programs and Services to replace the housing lost when the University West Apartments were torn down at Jordan Avenue to make way for another project.

The Jacobs School of Music is constructing an addition for faculty and practice space on that ground.

A second RPS project — a new dorm — is in the design phase.

STUDIO APARTMENTS
The complex, next to Willkie Quad, will open in fall 2012, said Director of RPS Patrick Connor. It will have 102 studio-style beds.

The apartments are for any student after their freshman year, including master’s and doctoral students.

Connor said RPS thought it was important to replace housing lost by the music school construction because many students in University West were music students and close to their instruction and practice at the school.

“It could be their home for four, five, six years,” Connor said.

The site was selected early last spring, he said.

“We know that for the apartment building, there was a lot of unhappiness when we had to inform students the University West Apartments were going to be torn down,” Connor said.

The apartment building will also serve non-traditional students and provide them with ease of access to campus amenities.

NEW DORM
The second project is currently being designed, and RPS plans to break ground around March 2012. The dorm will be a 440-bed residence hall at Rose and Jones avenues, also near Willkie Quad.

That site was selected by the University as the most effective location for the new dorm, Connor said.

The dorm would provide higher levels of privacy, and 50 students would not have to share restrooms as is typical in the traditional dorms, he said.

The dorm’s structure is on a smaller scale and more conducive to building community, as it will only be four or five stories as opposed to a high-rise building, he said.

UPCOMING PROJECT

RPS plans to roll out a new dining facility in 2013. The project includes gutting the center building of Forest Quad and reopening the dining hall it once housed.
A majority of the facilities in Read Center would transition to Forest.