Since the freshman dorms can’t hold all the freshmen, and parking complaints are only growing, FAU has decided it’s time to solve these issues.
At the Board of Trustees meeting on Dec. 14, the Financial Affairs Office and Department of Housing updated the BOT on their plans to build a new freshman dorm and parking garage by August 2013.
This year, FAU admitted over 3,600 students for fall classes, a 19 percent increase from 2010. FAU’s freshman dorms house only 1,902 students.
According to Housing Director Jill Eckardt, after placing some incoming freshmen in dorms, 600 students were still left without housing assignments.
“We were still left with a majority of students and that majority were freshman,” Eckardt said.
FAU is now planning to build a freshman dorm with 600 beds that, they say, should be ready by fall 2013. According to Eckardt, the current estimated cost for the new building is about $41 million. Although Housing is still undecided on a location, the options available are all on parking lot space near the current freshman dorms.
“We seem to build buildings on parking lots and we’re actually going to go ahead and build some parking first so we can accommodate our residents halls,” said Senior Vice President of Financial Affairs, Dennis Crudele.
This extra parking space will be a garage made for 1,000 cars on the north side of the Boca campus, between the stadium and the Innovation Village Apartments. There is also a possibility of having retail space on the first floor, according to Crudele.
Additional on-campus food retail will also be built with these new projects. “Currently, right now, all freshman housing students are required to have a meal plan,” Crudele said. “And at this point we have one resident dining hall.” According to Crudele, without more dining locations, FAU will not be able to accommodate the new students.
Housing and Financial Affairs will present a more detailed plan to the Board this February after collecting more information and will propose the projects for approval in March.
“This was just an update to tell you that this is coming and we have plans on the table,” Crudele said. “It’s important to show this committee where we’re headed.”
Andy • Feb 1, 2012 at 10:27 pm
I took a survey for the new housing/dining. One of the questions basically asked whether I would prefer to pay $4500-ish a semester to live in a 4-bedroom 2-bathroom and living room arrangement, or a IRT (livingroom, bathroom, two bedrooms for 4 people arrangement) for like $3500. All I have to say is… FAU is smoking crack if they think I’m going to pay $4500 a semester to live somewhere without a kitchen. CRACK. I also wouldn’t want to pay $3500 a semester to live somewhere where I have to share a room with someone. I’ve never seen more overpriced dorms than FAU, EVER.
Dave • Dec 26, 2011 at 3:37 am
To clarify, I meant:
*SGA President Ayden Maher.
Dave • Dec 26, 2011 at 3:37 am
Anonymous:
Although I understand what you’re saying about building one expensive building now versus two more expensive buildings later, the reality is that every university in the country builds things piecemeal in response to demand. This is done because, as you might expect, a bigger building means taking out a larger loan, which means higher loan payments. If you only had 600 people in a 1,200 student building, those 600 people would have to pay double the cost of a normal dorm to cover the cost of loan payments. No one wants to pay $10,000 a semester to live on campus… doesn’t matter HOW nice the dorms are.
The rise in enrollment comes with increases in housing. By 2013, the residential population would be 4,100; when the second phase of IVA hits, probably 1-2 years later, it’ll be 5,300 people. Add in the upcoming Greek housing of about 200 people (give or take) and you’re talking about 5,500 people on campus within five years. That will accommodate all the growth in freshman enrollment.
P.S. President Maher has already suggested to the Board of Trustees that they consider restricting freshmen from having cars. So that may become law pretty soon here.
Anonymous • Dec 24, 2011 at 3:52 pm
I was just thinking the same thing as Andy… you’d think they would go all out and build 1200 or more beds to anticipate the future rather than ignoring what we all know is going to become an issue later. After all, FAU does plan to increase enrollment every year for the next 5 years or so. Don’t they realize that it’s cheaper to build a bigger building than to build two small ones? Common Sense.
Also, how does building a parking garage on the north side of campus help the freshman dorms? It doesn’t. How does that help commuter students? It doesn’t. Unless they breakup the garage to commuter/resident students, one group or the other is still going to be at a huge loss. From what it seems, that they are building buildings on parking lot space, freshmen will probably no longer be allowed to have cars on campus. That might be a solution….
Mandatory meal plans are purposeless – if they’re going to make them mandatory, they should make all of them like the commuter plan and have an allotted number of meals for the semester and no flex bucks rather than a certain number of meals per week plus flex bucks. School isn’t cheap, and we aren’t banks. Can’t they make SOMETHING reasonably priced?
My last comment, with all of this new housing all over campus, there needs to be more efficient shuttle buses that run more frequently and deeper within campus. If you look at the current shuttle bus route, it literally goes around the loop of campus and then cuts in at about 2-3 places. It defeats the purpose of a shuttle since 90% of locations that need to be reached are within campus. After all, I know multiple students who literally drive their car from IVA to IRT just to save themselves from the walk.
On a bright side, it’s good to know that 2500 of 3600 freshmen were planning on living on campus and not being commuters. If they build for 1200, it allows for 3100 freshmen to live on campus…. but since they’re planning on increasing enrollment by 40% in the next 5 years, that’s 3100 of 5000 freshmen living on campus, and we’re right back to a commuter school when we were making headway towards being a ‘traditional university.’
Dave • Dec 20, 2011 at 1:23 am
Andy, I think they meant between the stadium and the SECOND phase of IVA apartments which will be built west of the stadium. What’s up now is the first phase.
andy • Dec 19, 2011 at 6:58 pm
What I don’t understand: If you couldn’t place 600 students THIS year, why wouldn’t you build more than 600 spots in anticipation of larger incoming classes? Also, between IVA and the stadium is FAU boulevard are they building it over the road? (LOL)