OGDEN — Weber State University’s new residential hall is open and airy in design, and visually energizing with walls in green, orange and Wildcat purple.
About 160 WSU students booked for the new Wildcat Village residential dorm can move into their stylish new digs starting Friday, but the public is invited to check out the new Hall One at an open house today. Residents will live in basic two-bedroom, four-occupant suites, but the building is designed to lure students out of their rooms and into common-area kitchenettes, big-screen television rooms, and group study areas where students can gather to do homework.
“The feedback from students has been that when they are in apartment-style configurations, they get to know the other three students in the apartment,” said Brett Perozzi, associate vice president for Student Affairs. “They don’t get to know other people on their floors or in their building. This design allows students to know the people they live with and have classes with.”
Wildcat Village replaces LaSal, Wasatch and Stansbury halls, which were demolished for the project.
Promontory Tower will be demolished in spring 2012.
Hall Two of Wildcat Village will open in fall 2012, and Hall Three is scheduled for completion in fall 2013.
The three residential halls aren’t getting catchier names at present because WSU officials are hoping major donors might step forward to be honored with naming rights.
When the project is complete, it will feature activity rooms with billiards and shuffleboard: laundry rooms with Web notification of availability; motion sensor lighting; energy usage monitors; room for on-site lectures, tutoring and other student support services; food-on-demand campus dining; kitchenettes on each floor; gas grills outside; and a recreational facility with cardio equipment and resistance machines.
The construction of Wildcat Village is funded through student fee revenue bonds, private gifts and other institutional sources such as housing program revenues. The three phases of Wildcat Village will cost $32 million. The first building cost was close to $10 million. That’s a relatively small price tag for this type of structure, Perozzi said.
“They are some of the best-designed facilities on a tight budget that I have seen in a really long time,” he said. “We have a team that pulled together, and everyone brought a different expertise. Between all of us, we were able to get high quality on a very limited budget.”
Hall One is 48,400 square feet. Hall Two will be 88,480 square feet and will include a dining hall. Hall Three will be 25,270 square feet. When Wildcat Village is complete it will have about 525 beds.
University Village, a few blocks to the south, has an apartment format with beds for 475. Nearly 100 percent of the university’s residential space is booked for fall semester, Perozzi said.
“We’ve seen tremendous demand from incoming and returning students in the past two years to live in the WSU residential halls,” Perozzi said. “The facilities that were built in the 1960s didn’t provide a desirable environment for learning at a modern university. The replacement of these halls will allow WSU to capitalize on new technologies.
“Design elements have been carefully considered to maximize the longevity and useful life span of Wildcat Village. These facilities will serve students for the next 50 years.”
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