After welcoming their largest class of incoming students in August, and facing a need for additional housing for its students, NSU officials have announced plans to build apartments for its future students. Aarika Camp, Associate Dean of Student Services and Director of Resident Life and Housing, said that a new residential hall will be constructed to house future students. Camp confirmed that the new apartments, which will house upper-class students, will open in August 2019.
The new residence hall will hold approximately 500-600 apartments varying from studios to four-bedroom apartment options. According to Camp, the resulting hall will be as big, if not bigger, than the Commons.
“We’re looking at pretty much every option that a student would want because it would be easy to say, ‘Oh, let’s do an all singles’ apartment [hall]’ but not everyone can afford that,” said Camp. “So we really considered what students want versus what they can afford.”
Camp said that the new rooms will have complete kitchens and full-sized beds, though other features are still being discussed.
The hall will be located next to the Leo Goodwin residence halls in place of the practice soccer field. However, Camp stated that students should not fret about losing the use of all soccer fields because the competition field, separate from the adjoining practice field, will remain in its current location.
“Students will still have the ‘real’ soccer field where they can watch the soccer games; we’re not displacing that,” said Camp.
The new residence halls will feature more lounges and study spaces, and will also feature a outdoor courtyard.
“Now we’re looking at what type of furniture we can have outside, deciding if we can add a fire pit,” said Camp.
She added that the most important feature brought up during the planning process was having large-scale programming space which would comfortably hold 100 people and open into the courtyard, allowing for additional options for events, meetings and gatherings.
“We’re trying to make sure that it’s not just for the students who live there, but for the students who live there to engage other students as well. It will kind of be like Commons where we have meeting space here for students; we have to look at the whole community,” said Camp.
