Plans begin for possible new dorm

Come fall of 2015, students might have a new option for housing.

Rick Bradley, assistant director of the Department of Housing and Residential Education, said the University will build a facility to replace Odum Village apartments, which will close due to a building code that requires all residence halls to have sprinklers.

Administrators hope to open the building somewhere near South Campus by the fall of 2015, when Odum will no longer be a housing option.

Bradley said there are no plans to demolish Odum Village unless administrators opt to build the new residence hall in the place of one of its buildings.

Anna Wu, assistant vice chancellor of facilities operations, planning and construction, said Odum Village will likely be repurposed once the new residence hall opens and will not be used for student housing.

The last new residence hall constructed on campus was Ram Village, which was completed in 2006.

Dianne Bachman, assistant director of facilities planning, said administrators are still in the early stages of planning the new building, but that they have hired Clark Nexsen, an architecture and engineering firm, to design the new facility.

Wu also said the Board of Trustees hired Clancy & Theys as construction manager last week.

Bradley said several sites are being considered for the building. He said they include locations on both sides of Blythe Drive, a location in between SASB North and the Rams Head parking deck on Ridge Road, and a site between Ehringhaus and Koury residence halls.

He also said the facility will be designed similar to the portion of Morrison Residence Hall that features super suites and is slated to offer 500 beds. It could take multiple sites to achieve that goal, he said.

Odum Village currently has about 460 beds.

Bradley said the occupancy goal is based on a recommendation from the Brailsford & Dunlavey consulting firm, which does demand analysis.

The firm considers the style of housing that students are interested in, the most likely student populations to live in the facility based on age and academic classification, the site location and the price point. It then determines what the demand for a particular housing location would be.

Bachman said renovations to housing facilities happen constantly.

“I understand housing is on a schedule where there’s continuous maintenance,” she said.

“There’s never a year or a summer when they’re not improving a residential building or community.”

Bradley said this summer Ehringhaus, Hinton James and Parker residence halls will undergo interior room and bathroom renovations.

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