UA Ready to Begin $38M Dorm, Health Center Project

Work has begun to clear two parking lots on the University of Arkansas campus to make way for a $38 million, 280,000-SF dormitory complex that will include four separate buildings.

Construction is scheduled to begin in November and be completed in July 2004, said Jay Huneycutt, UA associate director of contracted services and landscape architect.

On UA paperwork, the project officially is called “the northwest quadrant residential college — housing.”

The complex will be constructed along Garland Avenue between Maple and Cleveland streets.

The project architects are Tommy Polk and William Lamar of Polk Stanley Yeary Architects Ltd. in Little Rock. Nabholz Construction is the contractor.

A new $8 million, 36,000-SF health center will be built just to the south of the dormitory complex on the portion of that land nearest Maple Street. The beginning and completion dates of that project are the same as those for the dormitory.

The UA received a $3 million gift from the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation of Springdale to help with construction of the new health center.

The building that currently houses the University Health Center at 600 Razorback Road was completed in 1967, when the student population was 10,000. There were an estimated 29,521 visits to the health center during the 2000-2001 academic year.

The dormitory complex will consist of three residence buildings and one 26,000-SF dining facility. Each building will be four stories tall, Huneycutt said.

John Wichser, UA associate director of residential facilities, said the complex will include 602 beds and a building that will serve as a dining hall and commons area. Students will live in four-person suites with a living room area. Each student will have their own bedroom. Each four-person unit will also have two baths.

Wichser said the suites concept is new to the UA but common across the country.

“Nationally, this is really what the demographics are going to,” he said.

The suites won’t have full kitchens, though. That will encourage students to eat in the dining room and “develop community,” Wichser said.

Work to clear the area also includes the demolition of Fulbright Hall, which served as a women’s dormitory between Reid and Hotz halls. That demolition, which began Sept. 23 and is expected to take 10 weeks to complete, will cost the university about $260,000.

A 370-space parking lot will be constructed where Fulbright Hall stood. Huneycutt said the parking lot will provide the same number of spaces that are being removed for construction of the dormitory complex. (One-third of the parking lot at Garland and Cleveland streets will remain.) The dormitory complex also will take part of the green space located just to the south of Hotz Hall.

Huneycutt said the state plans to sell bonds to fund construction of the dormitory project. The complex will then be self-sustaining through student payments for rent and dining.

Huneycutt said the UA is working with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, which will be widening Garland Avenue between Maple and North streets while the UA construction is going on. The street widening, which is scheduled to be completed next summer, will make Garland Avenue four lanes through that area with a center, tree-lined median.

Another major construction project at the UA is a $22 million, seven-to-eight-story parking deck with 860 spaces. The deck will be located at the intersection of Duncan and Williams streets, south of Dickson Street behind the UA Physics Building. The parking deck will be two blocks long and one block wide. It will be built into the side of a hill so it doesn’t protrude from the landscape. That building project is on the same timetable for completion as the dormitory and heath center projects.