Demolition is under way at the Apartment Residence Hall, the first phase of the university’s comprehensive housing redevelopment project.
The five-year plan calls for replacing several high-rise residence halls with new residence halls and a dining and multipurpose community facility.
As demolition progresses on the apartment building, visible progress can be seen along Twentieth Street, where two new residence halls are being built on the site of the former Shelbourne Towers. The two halls are scheduled to open in time for the fall 2016 semester.
UT’s west campus redevelopment plan aims to transform the student experience and accommodate the growth in living and learning communities with three, four- and five-floor modern structures in a new village-style student-focused community.
This fall, eighteen students moved in to UT’s newest living and learning community, Air Force ROTC. More than 1,000 students now live in UT’s LLCs. Five more will open in fall 2016.
“We recognized that there had been no new housing facilities built in more than forty-five years,” said Frank Cuevas, associate vice chancellor for student life and executive director of University Housing. “The needs and demands of our students are much different than back when the residence halls were originally built. Our desire is to continue to improve the quality of student life and investing in an environment for student success through these new modern facilities.”
One way that will happen is by infusing academics into the residence halls. Cuevas hopes that by bringing multifunctional spaces that currently aren’t available in the older halls to each of the new facilities for group meetings, events, and even classes, it will further encourage faculty and student interaction.
In addition to the west redevelopment project, the new residence hall on the former site of Gibbs Hall is progressing. Workers are installing brick on the south side of the building. The hall, which will include a new dining facility, is scheduled to open in the spring 2017 semester while the adjacent 1,000-spot parking garage is set to open in August 2016.
For more information on campus construction projects, visit the Cone Zone.