Construction begins on Phase II of student housing Just one year after University Place opened to rave reviews in August 2002, a second phase of student housing is in the works that will double the number of residential students on campus in fall 2004. Approximately 750 students — all freshmen — will be housed in a new development under construction in the north parking lot adjacent to the campus services building. Another 192 slots will be available in University Manor, an apartment complex behind KSU Place that the KSU Foundation is in the process of purchasing. Like University Place and KSU Place, these new additions are being paid for with privatized funding made possible through the combined efforts of the KSU Foundation, the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, Kennesaw State University and Place Properties. The Cobb Development Authority approved the issuance of $53 million in bonds in June to enable the foundation to build more student housing on campus. “The foundation is unquestionably excited with the new housing project and the ability to provide a way for more students to share in the experience of university life at KSU,” said foundation President James A. Fleming. Already, demand has exceeded supply for the more than 1,000 beds at University Place and KSU Place, which will be filled to capacity when fall semester begins. Should any of those rooms come open over the course of the school year, a waiting list of 700 would-be boarders is poised and ready to fill the vacancies. “What we’ve built at Kennesaw is a step up from any housing that I’ve seen, partly because our market demands that,” said Dr. Nancy King, vice president for student success and enrollment services. “I don’t think you could get our students to live in the kind of dormitory experience that I had as an undergraduate. I think they would go shrieking into the streets.” The standard set by University Place will be repeated in the new development, which will consist of a series of interconnected structures standing as tall as six stories in some places. Built into the design are a limited number of classrooms, along with approximately 8,000 square feet of retail space. “What we have done here is tailor this to be a freshman community,” King said. “It’s going to be designed like a village, but it will be conducive to helping freshmen get off on the right foot.” Like their counterparts at University Place, residents of the new community will enjoy the luxury of a private bed/bath, with shared living and kitchen spaces. Unlike the earlier development, however, all of the apartments will open onto interior hallways, creating an experience not unlike the kind one might find in a more traditional dormitory setting. “Within the unit itself, they’re going to be very similar to what you see in University Place,” explained Earle Holley, vice president for business and finance. “The exterior is different, in that we don’t have the open access from the outside.” This change is meant to maximize the living/learning experience for students making their initial foray into college life. The interior hallways will give the resident assistants (whom King credits for the immediate success of student housing at KSU) an opportunity to play an even greater role in the lives of their fellow classmates. This design will also bring residents of different apartments together on a more consistent basis, making it easier for incoming freshmen to build relationships not only with their roommates, but other students as well. “We see
that as the place for freshmen to begin,” King said. “Our
hope would be that they’ll want to stay on campus and, as
they progress to be upperclassmen, that University Place becomes
something for them to move into.”
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