On Tuesday, Nov. 2, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new housing facility took place in an empty grassy plot of land across the street from Marion Street lot and next to Castle Heights lot.
Joe Mills, Director of Housing and Residence Life, said the new housing facility will take about 18 months of construction and is due to open Fall 2011. Mills said construction would start on Monday, Nov. 2, with the erection of the fence around the construction site.
Mills, President Timothy Hall, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Sherryl Byrd, CEO of Rentenbach Contractors Don Freeman, Project Manager David Whaley, Architects Lane Lyle and Marshall Duncan and Jimmy Mann and Site Superintendent Joe Lane all wore white hard hats and used gold shovels to toss dirt for the groundbreaking ceremony.
Mills said this groundbreaking ceremony was different from the traditional groundbreaking of bringing in several tons of nice dirt.
He said he wanted to actually dig into the dirt they would be digging.
“One of the downsides of being the fastest growing university in Tennessee is that you run out of space,” said APSU President Timothy Hall. He said in a couple of weeks APSU is going to celebrate having 10,000 students at the university and campus housing was 98 percent occupied for this fall semester.
Hall said, “Unfortunately, this space is not going to be the space that adds to what we are doing, but we need this space to help take down our older units and provide more current and up to date facilities for our students.”
Hall said as early as spring he is expecting the preliminary designs and thinking about a new a housing facility that will expand our current capacity.
Mills said the new housing facility will cost about $25.5 million. He said there will be 416 beds with double occupancy and the whole first floor will be a common area.
“We got a lot of student input, so I think we are building what they want to have.”
Mills said it is being discussed to put freshmen in the new housing facility.
He said the double occupancy will allow for students to meet new people.
He said it is a goal to get freshmen involved in the university because the sooner they get connected, the sooner they will be successful.
“We’ve got to get them connected to the university.”
The construction should not affect traffic or parking, Mills said.
He said the construction will only take up two rows of the Castle Heights lot and students should be able to park in the Marion Street lot to accommodate.
Freeman will be the contracting manager of the project. He said in the last two years, his company has begun the construction of six university housing projects.
Freeman said building the new Housing facility at APSU will be a challenging project because we have to pour about 3,000 yards of concrete and lay 400,000 bricks.
Hall said, “There has been more energy on this campus this year then I have ever seen before. I think it is taking us to a new level and we need the new space to curve that energy and the students that are coming to us in increasing numbers.”
Mills said when Freeman’s firm was picked through the bidding process, everyone was very excited. If the entire project runs well, like the way he and his staff are administering everything right now, then we are good to go.
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