The 1,512-bad, $182 million complex for Commonwealth Honors College students will help the Amherst campus reach 22,500 undergrads by 2020.
AMHERST - The University of Massachusetts Faculty Senate got a look Thursday at the preliminary designs for a new 1,512-bed, $182 million dormitory complex for Commonwealth Honors College students.
Juanita Holler, associate vice chancellor for facilities and campus services, provided preliminary drawings and spoke about the other projects under way on campus.
The new dormitories, which are to be built on the east side of Commonwealth Avenue between the Recreation Center and the Boyden Gymnasium, “gives us the opportunity for different types of experiences,” she said.
Freshman will be segregated to enhance “the first year freshman experience,” she said. Six hundred beds will be provided for first-year Honors College students, with 270 double rooms and 60 single-bed rooms.
For upper classes there will be 512 beds with 178 four-bed suites and 50 four-bedroom apartments. There will be two faculty apartments in the complex and nine classrooms.
The design is expected to be finished in February, with the dorms expected to open for the fall 2013.
Commonwealth Honors College currently serves about 3,000 students in 88 majors.
The new housing is slated to help the campus achieve its goal of increasing its number of undergraduate students to 22,500 by 2020, up from a preliminary count of 20,140 this fall, UMass spokesman Edward F. Blaguszewski said earlier.
This project is part of more than $400 million in campus projects in various stages.
Randall W. Phillis, president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, said he is concerned about financing of the projects and wondered how much was coming from the operating budget and how many faculty positions that money would support. “We need to build facilities and grow the faculty,” he said.
Joyce M. Hatch, vice chancellor for administration and finance at UMass, said the cost to repay the bond for the dormitory will come from the dorm rents.
Todd A. Diacon, UMass deputy chancellor, said he would be presenting more details as part of the Frameworks of Excellence plan during a Dec. 2 faculty senate meeting.
When questioned about whether they could push for more state help, Chancellor Robert C. Holub said, “I don’t anticipate or expect the state to pick up any costs next year.”
The state last month announced it would contribute $65 million toward the new $85 million academic building that will provide 1,800 new state-of-the-art classroom seats and academic space for programs including communications, journalism and linguistics. The building is expected to be completed by January 2014.
“The new revenue will have to come from various sources,” Diacon said. Some of that money would come from an Amherst campus “flagship fee,” an amount he didn’t specify. He said however the university will “try to make the increases neutral” for families earning $90,000 or less. “This will be the strategy,” he said.