Ohio University’s Board of Trustees pushed several topics of discussion from the Resource Committee through to its consent agenda for Friday’s meeting, including the first phase of the Housing Development Plan, but approval of the Six Year Capital Improvement Plan will be discussed in a full resolution, based on earlier discussion from the joint committee session Thursday morning.
The board got a full view of the first phase of the Housing Development Plan from Ryan Lombardi vice president for Student Affairs, and Harry Wyatt, associate vice president for Facilities.
The first phase will cost $110 million—with $100 million coming from debt and $10 million from Residential Housing reserves—to develop four new residence halls, a Learning Commons building and the “sweeping” green space between Clippinger and Morton, extending into South Beach, Wyatt said.
“It’s a vision that you’ve seen before, focusing on a campus green,” Wyatt said.
Lombardi also previewed the dorm design in the first buildings.
Dorm rooms in the four new halls will be “semi-suite” style, composed of 78 percent double rooms and 22 percent single rooms, Lombardi said.
Both doubles and singles will be connected to another dorm where they will share a bathroom with a closed-off water closet.
“It increases the efficiency a little bit of that shared space,” Lombardi said.
The new residence halls will also feature several small lounge spaces on every floor and two three-bedroom apartments for faculty members and family.
Lombardi said one of the goals of the South Green constructions is to bring academics closer to the residence halls, which will be partially achieved by the Learning Commons, a building with space programmable for classes and other activities.
“We want it to be an energy center down on South Green,” Lombardi said.
Also on the consent agenda for Friday will be the Lausche Heating Plant, requesting $3.5 million to create the design schematic.
Senior Associate Vice President of Technologies Joseph Lalley said the replacement plan was on track for the board to approve the full proposal by March 2014, although Facilities still has not announced which contractor’s plan will be used going forward.
However, the goal of the design schematic is to incorporate efficient heating and electricity with a more aesthetically pleasing design, Lalley said.
“We’ve been getting a lot of people whose first impressions will be coming through that (West Green) area,” Lalley said.
The consent agenda will also include approval of state appropriations, campus elevator upgrades in seven buildings and a change in the format of regional campus graduate tuition schedules to a format based on credit hour.
Stephen Golding, vice president for finance and administration, also gave an update on the Housing for Ohio Letter of Credit from Wells Fargo Bank, which was set to expire in October.
Instead, OU switched to Barclay’s as remarketing agent for a fee of approximately $20,000 per year.
The board also received an update to the Sustainability Report, OU’s insurance and the Clery Act Compliance Report of Fire Safety and Law Enforcement.
Before entering an executive session, Bryan Benchoff, vice president for university advancement, presented the progress of the Capital Investment Campaign by highlighting that OU generated a total of $431.2 million in funding as of Thursday morning and the $75 million scholarship collection.
Benchoff said eight new scholarships have been confirmed, and nine are in the process of forming.
“We have some good things in the making,” Benchoff said.
@DanielleRose84
