$60M South Quad renovation OK'd by University of Michigan regents
Renovation plans for the University of Michigan's South Quadrangle residence hall include expanded dining facilities, refurbished lounges, updated bathrooms and the creation of group study spots, music rooms and other community hubs.
Courtney Sacco I AnnArbor.com
The renovation will begin in May, placing the dormitory offline until the start of the 2014 school year.
It will bring the eight-year tab for dormitory and dining hall renovations to $500 million.
According to U-M, the renovation will:
- Create a new central campus dining center in South Quad with a capacity for 950 diners
- Improve student bathrooms with the addition of new plumbing, fixtures and shower privacy stalls.
- Refurbish and create new community lounges, with air conditioning.
- Redesign the building's entrance to allow better access from West Quadrangle and the Michigan Union
- Create and improve group study rooms, music practice rooms and two central laundry rooms.
The building's windows, elevators, Internet connectivity, student room flooring and roofing and fire suppression system were addressed in earlier projects.
"It will make a huge statement when it's done," said U-M Regent Andrea Fischer Newman.
U-M Vice President for Student Affairs E. Royster Harper called the renovations to the 1950s-era building necessary.
"I just want to assure you that ... infrastructure, plumbing ... doors to your shower ... is so far from luxury," she told regents Thursday, before they unanimously approved the renovation.
U-M has spent $440 million to renovate eight dormitories and dining halls, including the current $116 million renovation of East Quadrangle, which is taking place this year.
A refurbished Alice C. Lloyd Hall opened this year, after a $56 million investment. The 560-bed dormitory now has updated plumbing, heating, cooling, ventilation and fire suppression systems, as well as glass-walled meeting rooms, updated bathrooms with privacy stalls, flatscreen televisions tucked in the corners of hallways and 45 types of chairs scattered throughout.
"It looks like a hotel compared to what it was before," U-M junior Anna Peters told AnnArbor.com during U-M's move-in.
Other renovated halls include:
- Couzens Hall: Reopened in 2011 after $49 million renovation.
- North Quad: Opened in 2010 after $75 million construction project.
- Stockwell Hall: Reopened in 2009 after a $39.6 million renovation.
- Hill Dining Center: Reopened in 2008 after $21 million renovation.
- Mosher Jordan Hall: Reopened in 2008 after $44.1 million renovation.
The renovations are part of the school's Residential Life Initiative, launched by U-M President Mary Sue Coleman in 2004.
"Our students are happy and surprised and pleased" with the dorm renovations, Harper said.
Coleman called the renovations nice.
"They're not over the top at all," she said.
Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at kelliewoodhouse@annarbor.com or 734-623-4602 and follow her on twitter.
Comments
Haran Rashes
Fri, Sep 21, 2012 : 12:36 p.m.
I recently moved my freshman daughter into West Quad. Except for new carpeting and wifi, I don't think any significant improvements have taken place since I lived there from 1984-1988. No one would fault a homeowner for updating their house during a twenty five year stretch. The University is finally making much needed updates and repairs to our students' "homes." Hopefully West Quad will still be on tap for 2014-15 and probably Bursley the year after that. Also, didn't Baits II also recently undergo a renovation?
Rob
Fri, Sep 21, 2012 : 12:12 p.m.
Hooray! More construction!
DonBee
Fri, Sep 21, 2012 : 10:30 a.m.
jpud - The other competition is from the new high rise "apartment" buildings. Who would want to be in a dorm, if they could afford to be anywhere else? There is no competition for rec sports, so don't expect the U to spend money on those facilities. The slumlords around town are going to find demand off a bit when this and the high rises are done. I suspect there will be pricing pressure on them next year with the increase in better options. Maybe some of them will actually invest in their properties.
jpud
Fri, Sep 21, 2012 : 1:04 p.m.
The competition is the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State, University of California, University of Virginia, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, etc. When out of state students comparison shop schools, Michigan comes up way short in dorms and rec sport facilities. To say there is no competition for rec sports is taking a very Ann Arbor centric view of the world. We compete for the very best students in the world and lose admitted students to our competition. The new high rise apartment buildings certainly compete for the wealthy student demographic, it will be interesting to see if freshman start moving into them and ditch UM housing entirely. Certainly if one of those apartments chooses to market to a freshman demographic, they may enjoy success.
jpud
Fri, Sep 21, 2012 : 12:48 a.m.
no need to make it sound like people are apologizing for overdue maintenance on the dorms and dining facilities---too little is being done, not too much. the dorms, unions and recreational sport facilities were largely ignored by prior administrations while competitors gilded their facilities, leaving UM at a marked disadvantage when recruiting prospective out of state students. The currrent renovations as proposed still leave UM way, way behind its peers in these strategic areas. Michigan needs two more recreational sport facilities, renovations for IM building, CCRB, and NCRB and at least one more new dorm ASAP, and that does not even take into account renovations needed on several older dorms that have yet to be touched.