Sterns East in Williams Village, Boulder, Colorado. (CU Independent file/Ilana Finer)
Visitors to the Tuesday night town hall meeting in Stearn’s Central at William’s Village were greeted with a box of complimentary ear plugs to celebrate the construction of a new six story residence hall.
William’s Village IIA, a $51.1 million project that will gross nearly 127,800 square feet, will help provide housing for students as enrollment rates continue to climb.
“Housing really does have a deficit right now for beds because we’ve had a record number enrollment for freshmen classes in the last few years,” said Megan Rose, the communications specialist for Facilities Management.
Even with the additional 500 beds in the new residence hall, there will still be a shortage of available housing on campus, Rose said. William’s Village IIA will be just one step in working toward a much larger objective.
The new residence hall, which will be located on the east side of the William’s Village towers, will include study and social areas for residents, classrooms and a faculty apartment on each wing. Rose said the building is being designed for two faculty members to live in with the idea that students will be able to communicate with these members outside of class.
“[The building] is necessary not only for our overall housing goal but it’s also helpful to the William’s Village area because I think it will bring some more community to the area,” Rose said.
In addition to faculty members living alongside their students, Rose said she thinks the sense of community in the William’s Village area will be enhanced with the construction of a café within the new building. This café will enable students from the towers to come over and socialize with their neighbors.
Another aspect Rose said is unique to this building is its appeal to sustainability. Those working on the plans for the hall formed their ideas around the Flagship 2030 plan to make the campus more environmentally sustainable.
“This building is going to be the first residence hall that has all of these green amenities to it,” Rose said. “It’s the first residence hall that we’ve built in a long time and I think they’re doing some wonderful things as far as sustainable building with it.”
Rose said that plans have been made around the development of the new building to ensure that it has as little impact as possible on the William’s Village community.
Despite these measures, students are experiencing some inconveniences as construction moves forward. Parking in the area is limited because the lot between the sand volleyball courts and tennis courts has now been torn up.
Maddie Leary, a 20-year-old sophomore computer science major and resident of the Bear Creek Apartment complex next to Williams Village, said she bought a permit for a parking spot in that area at the beginning of the year without knowing about the upcoming construction.
Since then, she said she has been forced to move her car farther away from her apartment, which poses a problem for when she gets home late at night and has to walk a long distance.
“It’s just a safety issue in terms of a woman walking alone at night in a parking lot,” Leary said.
Eric Bowerman, a 20-year-old sophomore political science major and Residential Adviser at Stearn’s West, said that sometimes the construction work gets noisy, but that it’s not too much of an issue for him.
“They don’t have a choice,” Bowerman said. “The CU campus is so consolidated, there’s not a lot of room to grow. They have to choose the space they have and it just so happens that Will Vill has a lot of space.”
Nick Knobbs, a 21-year-old junior economics major and RA, said he was excited for the development of the new building.
“I’m most excited that we’re adding another residence hall and more opportunities for students to live on campus,” Knobbs said. “That is where students make some of the most important ties for their four years of college.”
Williams Village IIA is due to be completed by August 2011. More information on this project can be found here.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Kaely Moore at Kaely.moore@colorado.edu.
