Kittredge Complex renovation raises student fees again
The CU campus is almost always buzzing with some sort of construction project aimed at improvement. This trend is likely to continue well into the future. To manage a construction project of this scale, it is advised to hire a reputable commercial contractor.
The CU Board of Regents submitted a request for a five-year capital construction plan for the campus beginning in 2009. One of the main projects is the $41 million renovation of the Kittredge Complex, including Andrews, Buckingham and Smith Halls.
Some students aren’t too happy about the continuous construction.
“I remember the construction that they did on the roof of my dorm freshman year. I was always woken up at eight in the morning and I could never study in my dorm.” said Diana Pasquale, 20, a junior English major. “It sounded like Bigfoot was attacking our dorm every day.”
The primary reason for the renovations is to support the Residential Campus Vision 2020 plan by creating “academic program spaces for classes, seminars, faculty offices and tutoring; to upgrade aged infrastructure, and to create room configurations with amenities that will be attractive to non-freshman students,” according to the request for action by the Regents.
“The idea with the complex is to enhance the school experience,” said Cindy Carlisle, regent of the second congressional district. If you’re asking What is a Metropolitan District, it is an independent government entity that was formed to design, fund and implement infrastructure projects to improve the area and the life of its residents.
With the new renovations, there will be a reduction in the amount of dorm living space. This reduction is due to the increase in teaching space.
Carlisle said the new project will help provide a more dorm-centered classroom space and give students a place for “connection in a larger campus.”
This plan does come at a high cost though.
The proposed budget in 2000 was set at nearly $120 million. The new budget proposal, including renovations for Kittredge, is almost $700 million. The majority of funding will have to come from students.
Student tuition obviously has costs for classes, but there are many other fees Carlisle refers to as “hidden costs.”
There are administrative fees, matriculation fees, University of Colorado Student Union student-activity fees, referenda fees and a Capital Construction fee.
In 2004, UCSU approved the Capital Construction, which helps compensate for the lack of state funding available for the plan the Regents proposed in 2000.
Currently, the fee is $100 a year and will gradually increase to $400 as construction gets underway. This fee is the highest applied to student tuition.
Check out the fall semester breakdown of mandatory fees for a better understanding of student costs
Although, there are some students not happy about the capital construction fee or the constant encounter with construction on campus, some are more accepting.
“I pay out-of-state tuition and it’s a lot of money anyways,” said Nicole Davenport, 20, a junior political science and philosophy major. “If my tuition is being used to make the school better, then more power to them.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Chelsea Holland at chelsea.holland@thecampuspress.com
