By Jesse Medina
By now you have noticed the road outside of the Student Union Building has been closed off for sometime due to construction. That construction is for the new residence hall and student activity center.
The new community housing facilities and housing building will be located where the parking lot next to the football field currently is on the east side of the stadium. It will loop around the field to some extent and students will be able to see the field from the facility.
The Residences at the Rex, as the facility will be called, will house not only dormitories for students but community facilities and a restaurant. It will also have additional bleacher sections, press box, and a large patio overlooking the field. The restaurant will be stylishly designed along with having windows allowing for watching the football games. The restaurant will be open year round, not just for football or track functions.
Questions have been raised on the subject of who will be allowed to live in the Residences at the Rex. According to the director of housing Bruce Del Tondo, those who will be on the waiting list is “not ironed out yet”. Despite this, Mr. Del Tondo said that the dormitories will not be exclusively for athletes. The dormitories will be available to all students but which students will be chosen to live there will be based on a lottery system that would give seniors and juniors priority. Another factor contributing to who will occupy the new housing includes GPA.
The new facility is expected to house approximately 67 students in a quad-like dormitory. The dormitory would be one fairly large community living area. A hall would leave from the area and contain four private rooms. Each “quad” would house four students.
In addition to the new residence hall a campus green will be added on the east side of the Residences at the Rex as well as a parking area which is located to the north of the Green. The parking area is an attempt to alleviate the already stressful parking situation here at Adams.
Stadium Avenue, pending permission from the city of Alamosa, will be permanently closed off and transformed into a pedestrian walk way. You will be able to access the northern part of Stadium drive by using El Rio Drive but the care-free days of parking in front of the Student Union Building will be over.
The construction on the north end is all in an attempt to transform the north campus into a more pleasurable and aesthetically pleasing part of the school. Continuity with the south part of the campus and a more traditional landscape and walk way could make the campus more student friendly. Mr. Del Tondo put it like this: it will give the north side a “more residential feel”.
The facilities are scheduled to be completed for 2010. So when you arrive next year for your fall semester you might arrive to find a new and improved campus.
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