New Residence Hall - Construction Update 10/1/2012

Welcome to the new blog!

Here are a couple of my recent pictures of the new residence hall being erected on campus just south of Parking Garage 2.

NAME: Doesn't have a formal name yet, although Housing plans to hold a contest where the students can submit ideas for the name (like they did with Glades Park Towers). No word on exactly when that will happen though.

OPENS: Fall 2013. Will bring on-campus residential population to ~4,169 students. 

CAPACITY: Will add 614 beds to campus of which: 200 will be double/double suites with 2 full baths, 400 will be 4 single bed room suites with 2 full baths and 14 will be RA suites with living rooms and full bath. The layout of the suites should be very similar to the layout of the GPT/HPT suites.

FEATURES: This new dorm will also have the first faculty-in-residence program, whereby a professor lives on campus. It will also bring a new Centre Marketplace-style dining venue to campus that can serve ~600 students. Expect it to be similar food to the existing Cafe by the Student Union. It will also have the usual stuff: wi-fi, classrooms, study space, computer labs, blah blah blah.

...and on to the pictures! Descriptions underneath each photo.

Construction workers are making good progress. Here you can see the height of the new dorm in comparison to Parking Garage 2 already.

The first of three artist's renderings (from the architects, PGAL) hanging on the green construction fences. This one is a view from the Living Room Theater parking lot looking east towards UVA. You can see Parking Garage 2 (pink structure to the left), the dorm and that single story extension on the bottom is the new cafeteria.

South side of  the dorm.

Apparently the cafe will have outdoor dining facing the lake that abuts the Visual Arts center (the building with the jagged dock along the water). You may remember that the existing Cafe once had outdoor tables that were scarcely used and fenced in; ultimately the indoor space was expanded to give us more tables and the dessert counter.

Here's a view of the southwest side of the building. If you look back to picture 3 you'll see the left side has a tall red/blue glass atrium which will presumably be one of the main entrances to the building. There will also be a roundabout here so students can be picked up/dropped off. Each of these roundabouts also doubles as a potential shuttle stop in the future.

Here's a view from the top of Parking Garage 2 looking at the northwest corner of the building (that's IRT in the background). This big dirt area will become the new cafeteria and outdoor seating.

More views from Parking Garage 2. Here's the first...

  ...and the second. Right now this is the "staging area" for construction but once the building is finished it will become a plaza for students. Renderings shown at the groundbreaking suggest there will be a basketball court and a sand volleyball court here and perhaps even a fountain. Take that with a grain of salt though since things can change quite a bit from rendering to finished product, primarily due to budget fluctuations.

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 MORE INFO:

• Check out video from the Groundbreaking Ceremony on August 6th, 2012.
• More renderings from the architect's website here showing the lobby, the new cafe and the general room layout.
• Here's the parking layout for the new dorm including info on new parking spaces. 

GO OWLS!