By Jessica Railey

Residence Life and Flynn Battaglia PC are planning a new apartment-style residence hall for juniors and seniors on the Buffalo State College campus located at the R parking lot.

The estimated construction cost is $11 million and the target opening date is the fall of 2007. The time table is as follows:

•  design process: ongoing through December 2005

•  construction: January 2006 through June 2007 (14 to 18 months)

•  preparation for opening: summer of 2007

“We have seen continued increased occupancy for the last five to six years, and we're … at the point where we are running out of space,” said Tim Ecklund, associate vice president of Residence Life and Auxiliary Services at Buffalo State. In 1999, 1,608 students were living on campus as compared to 1,875 students living on campus as of the fall 2004.

Some students do not think the new complex is needed.

“Isn't this school mostly commuters? Do they really need it?” Gregory Metz Jr., a senior at Buffalo State said.

The site for the new complex is the R parking lot , which is student parking. Where exactly on the site is “still under discussion,” Ecklund said. Parking will be decreased, but a part of the design “brings back the parking area,” he said. How much parking will be taken up is unknown, as there are not yet any concrete designs for the building.

The fact that parking will be taken up is an issue for students.

“If they buy more land for parking, then it is OK,” Metz said. “I live on campus and if leave during the day, I sometimes have to park at Albright Knox,” he said.

The new complex will hold 200 beds, probably four beds to each apartment, and one bed to each room. Apartments will have a full kitchen, an eat-in area and a living room area.

Since the plan is in its early stages, the design is not certain. Administrators on campus are working with the architects to determine whether the complex will be a high-rise building or only two to three floors. The administrators, in addition to Ecklund, working with the architects include:

•  Stan Medinac, associate vice president for facility planning

•  Steve Shaffer, manager for design and construction

•  Kris Kaufman, director of residence life

The apartment-style complex is not going to change the status of the other residence halls on campus. Neumann and Perry halls will remain primarily for first-year students and North Wing will remain the campus' “global village,” reserved mainly for honors students and international students.

“What we have right now … is a pretty good set-up to allow students to move through,” Ecklund said. “Freshmen in doubles down a long corridor, sophomores in suites in the Towers, then the Moore complex,” he said. The Moore Complex houses mainly juniors and seniors, graduate students and families.

The apartments will be offered to students at a price comparable to what students living in the Moore complex will be charged come 2007. Currently, it costs $2,240 to live in a single room in Moore and $2,796 for a double room.

The new complex will be paid for by the Dormitory Authority of the state of New York (DASNY). The organization is a bonding authority. It functions as a debts service. In other words, Buffalo State will have to repay DASNY in a sort of “monthly mortgage payment,” Ecklund said.

Apartment-style housing is the “trend right now in higher education … more so in these recent years than when the other buildings were built,” Ecklund said. A new residence hall has not been built on the Buffalo State campus since The Towers and Moore Complex in 1968.

Flynn Battaglia PC of Buffalo is the design consultant for the project. Flynn Battaglia has done other work on the Buffalo State campus, including masonry restoration projects in the Science Building , and work on Rockwell Hall's roof.

“We work on mainly colleges and university campuses,” said Dave Carli, project manager and licensed architect at Flynn Battaglia. They are also involved with projects on Oswego State College and University at Buffalo campuses.

Jessica Railey can be contacted at: Railjl11@buffalostate.edu

Other links: State University Construction Fund

Dormitory Authority of the State of NY