Plans for completely renovating and/or rebuilding University residence halls are under way as the University begins selecting a master planner/developer with hopes that some students could move into a new dormitory by January 2008, Mike Davis, Assistant Vice President for Administration, said. Davis said updating all of the residence halls over a three-year period is the final project out of five University President Stephen Hulbert wanted completed in order to improve the quality of life for students. Other projects included were the construction of the La Maison du Bayou on-campus apartments, the recreation center, renovations to the cafeteria and the repaving of streets and construction of new parking lots.
The residence hall project will be financed through the sale of bonds that will be paid off by the rental fees collected from students living in the dormitories, Davis said.
The master planner/developer will look at the existing residence halls and make recommendations, which could range from complete renovation to demolishing every dormitory and building new ones or a combination, Davis said.
“We know there are certain facilities that would be better to demolish,” Davis said. “There may be one or two, from a financial standpoint, (that we could) go ahead and renovate.”
Community showers and eight-story dormitories are no longer popular among students as they were when they were built in the 1960s, Davis said, adding that the plan should exclude dormitories higher than three stories tall.
“We have to do something with our existing residence halls,” Davis said. “Some are in configurations that today’s students no longer want to live in.”
The new plans for residence halls could be in different configurations, Davis said, including two roommates sharing a bathroom area with an adjoining room or one person to a room sharing a bathroom with one other person, etc. There could also possibly be some type of common living area between the rooms. Davis said that the new dorm plans could be somewhat similar to the accommodations in La Maison du Bayou but that the on-campus apartments would still be the University’s “top of the line housing.” The new residence halls will still be more traditional than the La Maison du Bayou apartments, Davis said, but will meet today’s standards.
Davis said during the process of updating the residence halls, the dormitories would remain in operation. The plan is to construct a new facility and then tear one down, Davis said.
A pre-proposal conference was held Thursday for businesses interested in submitting proposals, with three businesses in attendance. Davis said at least two of the companies had architects there with them at the meeting.
“Many were taking pictures of the campus afterwards and were getting a feel for the architectural style of the campus,” Davis said.
Those businesses will have until Aug. 31 to submit their proposals. Once all proposals are submitted, an evaluation committee will begin judging them. The evaluation committee is comprised of seven University staff members, two students, a representative from the University of Louisiana System’s Board of Supervisors, a representative from the Board of Regents and one representative from Facility Planning and Control in Baton Rouge. The proposals will be judged on creativity and what is financially feasible for the University, Davis said.
The committee will narrow all of the submissions to two, Davis said, and may require each to make a formal proposal to the University to see detailed plans. Once a proposal is chosen and all of the aspects have been analyzed, final approval will be required from the University of Louisiana System’s Board of Supervisors. Davis hopes to receive permission from the board in December.
