UMR takes first step toward residential college
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In the first step of a residential life plan that will change student life at the University of Missouri-Rolla as well as the campus’ appearance, the University of Missouri Board of Curators approved on Friday the selection of a consultant to design two new residential buildings at UMR.
The curators, meeting on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus, approved the hiring of Mackey Mitchell Associates of St. Louis to design the two new buildings, one of which will be UMR’s first "residential college." Residential colleges are living units designed to promote a learning community among the students by providing educational programming along with more traditional facets of university residential life.
Plans call for the new structures to be located on the northwest corner of Bishop Avenue and 14th Street, directly across from McNutt Hall on Bishop Avenue. The 256-bed residential college, scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2004, will face the southeast and will be diagonally opposite UMR’s new student center, the Havener Center, which also is scheduled to open in the fall of 2004. The second building will have 144 beds and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2005. Both residential buildings will include a mix of semi-private doubles for freshmen and single suites for upperclass students. Completion of the residential college and the Havener Center will result in a newly defined entrance to the campus at the intersection of Bishop Avenue and 14th Street.
Construction of the two residential buildings is estimated to cost $21,776,921. All but $300,000 of the funds for those buildings will come from the sale of revenue bonds. Also at Friday’s meeting, the curators heard a report about UMR’s residential life plan, which calls for construction of a total of four residential units on the northwest section of the Bishop Avenue-14th Street area as well as renovation of Thomas Jefferson Hall north of campus. As part of the residential life plan, the new residential college complex will replace the five residence halls located at the Quadrangle on 10th Street between Bishop Avenue and State Street. Kelly Hall, the oldest of those residence halls, was built in 1950, and Holtman Hall, the newest, was built in 1966.
The new construction and renovations will result in a total of 1,400 beds in UMR’s residence halls, as opposed to 1,300 currently. The total cost of the residential life plan will be $63 million, to be financed through the sale of revenue bonds.
Also at the Board of Curators meeting, the curators approved the schematic design for the Havener Center. The design was prepared by Dickinson Hussman Architects of St. Louis. Construction of the Havener Center, at the current location of the UMR Health Information and Security (HIS) Building, is to begin in the spring with completion by the fall of 2004. UMR will break ground for the Havener Center during Homecoming activities on Friday, Oct. 11. The HIS Building will be razed to make room for the Havener Center and the campus police and health services departments, along with other administrative offices, will move into the University Center-East.
The Havener Center is named for UMR graduate Gary Havener, who donated $5 million to the project.
