The South Green residence hall construction project will take years to complete and cost Ohio University millions of dollars — but it won’t increase the number of students who can live on campus.
“Our plan is not to grow our size,” said Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student affairs. “There’s a sense that the size that we are right now is kind of a sweet spot … that it feels good as a community, it feels good in the terms of the impact on Athens, in terms of the space we have on this campus.”
When the entire project is complete — which should take 10 years, according to previous Post articles — the bed capacity will still be 8,000, said Christine Sheets, vice president of Facilities and Capital Planning.
The overhaul of the residence halls will include the demolition of all buildings on South Green, except for Adams, Mackinnon, Brown, Pickering and Crawford halls. It is expected to cost between $95 million to $105 million, according to a previous Post article.
“We had the capacity, so to expand is not necessary at this stage of the game,” Sheets said.
Two-thirds of the project will be paid for through debt, and one-third of the project will be financed by OU from cash reserves and maintenance saving, according to a previous Post article.
Increasing the bed capacity of the residence halls could possibly complicate other parts of campus. Taking on a larger class size could potentially affect the space availability in the dining halls, Baker University Center, Alden Library, classrooms and other parts of campus, Lombardi said.
There was enough space in the current residence halls to accommodate this year’s largest incoming class at OU — almost 4,500 students.
“We want small incremental growth on the Athens campus,” said OU President Roderick McDavis. “We’ll always be right about 4,000 freshmen.”
“What we’re really trying to do on the Athens campus is expand the quality and expand that diversity. Where our real growth is going to occur is our regional campuses and our online programs. On our regional campuses, we have more space, so that’s were the real growth can happen” McDavis said.
This school year marks the third consecutive year that application numbers have increased, but officials said they don’t plan to change OU’s selection process.
“We could start to move in that direction, but that is definitely not the direction we chose to go: It’s definitely not part of the enrollment plan, it’s definitely not where our board wants to go, it’s definitely not where the provost wants to go or the president,” said Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management.
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