When it rains it pours. After 36 years with no new dorms on campus, the university is planning the construction of four over the next 10 years.
Ruby Hall, already in construction, will be the first dorm in what will eventually become a community of new dorms on the north side of campus. Ruby Hall is slated to open for the fall 2005 semester.
The south campus housing community is already made up of Hathorn, Cresswell and Rice halls. A north side community will be created with Ruby Hall and the new facilities, as well as Sessums, McKee and other dorms already on that end of campus. Hightower was demolished in late October and Duggar and Hamlin will face similar fates.
Plans for the future dorms deviate from the design of Ruby Hall, but follow its numbers for size and occupancy.
“The new buildings will be roughly the same size as Ruby Hall, with about 400 bed spaces per each building.” Kibler said.
Though the dorms will be relatively the same size, Kibler noted that the facilities will not have the same design or appearance.
Planners are beginning to design the next residence hall, which is expected to be completed by fall 2006, said Fred Mock, assistant director for facilities and maintenance. Like Ruby Hall, it will include a mix of single and double rooms and private bathrooms in the new dorms, but the percentage of single and double rooms will be different, Mock said.
“We believe that the balance between single rooms and double rooms will be different because we’ll satisfy a pretty high percentage of single room demand with Ruby Hall,” Kibler said. “We expect the next phase to have a much higher percentage of double rooms.”
Ruby Hall will be about two-thirds single rooms and one-third double rooms.
Since the new dorms have not been named, they are classified as “phases.” Kibler said that Phase II, the dorm being built after Ruby Hall, will be completely planned out this year.
Meridian-based Luke and Kaye Architects are heading the design of all the new dorms, and are currently in the planning stage of Phase II, said Tim Muzzi, construction administrator at the physical plant and head architect for MSU.
Ruby Hall remains exclusive to entering freshmen, but Mock said plans call for upperclassmen occupancy in the Phase II facility.
All of the new dorms will be co-ed, but Kibler said males and females will live on separate halls. Students will have a card they must swipe to get into the building, into the hall that they live on and into their rooms.
“It’s not the same as traditional co-ed housing where men and women had access to the same space. [The new dorms] will be distinct housing for men and women, though they will be housed in the same building,” Kibler said.
As far as Phases III and IV, plans will begin following the completion of planning Ruby Hall and Phase II, Kibler said.
Muzzi said that after the completion of all four dorms, there will be about 1,600 new bed-spaces on campus. When combined with current dorms, it will mean 4,000 bed-spaces on campus, enough to house roughly 25 percent of the student body at MSU.