Since the doors of Centennial and Falcon Heights opened in Fall 2011, there are currently no plans in the near future for a new traditional residence hall to be built.
Sarah Waters, director of Residence Life, said there has been talk about what will happen next, but no formal decision has been made.
Waters said the University is currently focusing on the academic buildings and getting the traditional buildings and new business building into the construction phase.
The next project that will be happening housing-wise is the new Greek village, Waters said.
“The demolition will be starting this summer and into the fall of 2014,” she said. “The new houses will be built on the site of Conklin East and West and there are scheduled to be about 400 total students living there.”
Junior Tori Heasley lives in the Greek houses at Conklin and she said she has mixed opinions on the demolition.
“We have a lot of concerns being Greek, but we’re really excited as well,” she said.
She said if the renovations are similar to how Conklin was redone she thinks the University is on a good path.
“I liked Conklin and how it was renovated because it used to be offices,” Heasley said.
When it comes to making the decision of what will happen next it is a collaborative effort, said Steve Krakoff, vice president of Capital Planning and Campus Operations.
Leaders of Student Affairs and Residence Life come together with Finance, Administration and Capital Planning in order to plan new renovations before sending them to the Board of Trustees for approval, Krakoff said.
Waters said a lot of the decision is based on a balancing act between priorities and the overall University debt and debt capacity.
Waters and Krakoff both agree it is difficult to determine when the next traditional residence hall will be built.
“We would be looking at no earlier than 2016,” Waters said. “Likely it would be somewhere between 2016 and 2018 would be the next phase planned of are we going to build more or are we going to have another significant capital investment in another one of the buildings to gut it and renovate it in some nature?”
Krakoff said there is really no way to tell a specific time frame, but part of the decision is based on the enrollment of the University.
Waters said the execution of the Master Plan is moving at a nice pace.
“The University with the campus Master Plan is committed to constantly improving the facilities and environment. The residence halls are a part of that without question, but the focus is on the academic buildings,” Waters said.
