Christina Favuzzi
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President Jeffrey Armstrong announced today in an email to students that Cal Poly will continue with the student housing project at the Grand Avenue entrance to campus.
The university is waiting on final approval from the California State University Board of Trustees, but as of now, plans are moving forward.
“Having more housing is critical to student success at Cal Poly,” Vice President for Student Affairs Keith Humphrey said. “We know that students who live in the residence halls perform better academically, reach higher levels of student success, graduate at higher rates than students who don’t, so we want to make sure that we are housing as many students as possible.”
In about two years time, Cal Poly hopes to break ground on the Grand Avenue parking lot. By 2018, all those parking spaces will be turned into 1,400 beds for first-year students.
The housing project is a direct response to a demand study done in fall of 2012 that showed that Cal Poly has a demand for more than 3,000 additional beds by students.
Humphrey said the new student housing is part of a bigger goal.
“The president has a goal of hopefully being able to house first- and second-year students on campus ultimately, so this gets us closer to that goal, keeping all of our first year students in the same area of campus together,” Humphrey said.
All the construction noise might not be the best soundtrack for students studying nearby, but Humphrey said they will work with the facilities department to get the dorms built while maintaining an academic environment.
“They won’t open until fall of 2018 so there’s a lot of time to engage students, to engage faculty, as well as to make sure that the program that we’re designing is the most current and cutting edge when we open in four years,” Humphrey said.
Rooms in the five new residence halls of the housing complex will be doubles and quads. A new dining location will also be built with the dorms.