President Hanbury hosted the fourth Town Hall meeting of 2019 on Wednesday, Jan. 30 in the Flight Deck in the Don Taft University Center.
Topics discussed included the new residence hall, plans for the University Park Plaza and study spaces on campus.
“They’re going to be beautiful apartments. They’re even going to have washers and dryers in every room, if you can imagine that. Now your mother will have no excuse for you to bring dirty laundry home to her to wash,” joked President Hanbury.
Each apartment will have dishwashers as well. “Now there’s definitely no excuse for dirty dishes in the sink and laundry hanging all over the room.” He said.
The new apartments and parking structure will be open by August, as confirmed by Vice President of Facilities, Daniel Alfonso.
Additionally, Dr. Hanbury shared plans for the University Park Plaza. Within the next few years, the university plans to tear down the existing buildings and construct a hotel on campus.
“I want to build a hotel conference center right there where the nursing simulation lab is and the lake. There will be waterfront property there for the hotel,” said Dr. Hanbury.
There will also be about 1,200 apartments that will be market rent for anyone, such as faculty or physicians in the future hospital. He added that the hotel and first phase of the apartments will likely be constructed when the hospital opens by 2024.
One student also brought up concerns about the lack of study spaces on campus, to which Jim Hutchins, vice president for information services and university librarian, replied “right now we are conducting a renovation project on the second floor of the library. We’re going to add 250 wired seats and eight new study rooms.”
Marc Croquet, vice president of business services, added that the university will look into other places to add study spaces and more convenient seating beyond benches in more buildings.
The student government presented a potential project for the university could be to move the Hall of Fame and sports memorabilia to a place that would better fit the content, and to add a study space for students.
“Moving the Hall of Fame is actually something that we have looked at. The biggest challenge that we had was finding an acceptable location for the memorabilia, but it is something that we have looked at. If you tell me that you want to turn that into a study space, we’ll figure it out,” said Alfonso.
“I think that would be good, and I think that would be better for the Hall of Fame,” added President Hanbury.
For more information about Town Hall meetings, visit www.nova.edu/townhall/index.html.
