UW-Madison works to meet first-year housing demand

Plans to provide new on-campus undergraduate housing are essential to better serving the needs of first-year students and to redeveloping the East Campus area, university officials say.

“Our goal is to enhance student housing and meet the expectations of freshmen and their families that we have an adequate housing supply,” says Paul Evans, director of University Housing. “Parents expect us to be able to offer affordable on-campus housing, but their demand has outstripped our supply.”

Chancellor John D. Wiley says it is important for first-year students, socially and academically, to have the opportunity to live on campus.

“University residence halls are designed to foster a living-learning experience,” Wiley says. “I am committed to being able to offer this experience to all freshmen who wish to join other students living on campus.”

Evans says that one of the major concerns of first-year students and their families is that the university be able to provide on-campus housing. In recent years, however, Evans says the university has run about 700 beds short of being able to meet that demand, and last fall the number hit 770.

“Families are looking for assurances that their kids can live on campus, and students want the convenience and programs that we offer as they make a demanding adjustment to campus life,” says Evans, noting the popularity of features such as residence-hall-centered learning communities.

The importance of on-campus housing to first-year students is clear, adds Evans. About 78 percent of first-year students live in on-campus housing, with the remaining 22 percent living off campus. In their second year, however, those numbers are almost reversed, as 74 percent turn to off-campus accommodations.

In addition, a survey of the 12,663 freshmen admitted for the 2003-04 academic year shows that 93 percent ranked on-campus housing as very important or somewhat important to them, says Robert Seltzer, UW–Madison admissions director.

UW–Madison officials on Monday night (March 22) told members of the Joint Southeast Area Campus Committee that the new residence halls would improve housing facilities and meet the needs of students well beyond the year 2020.

“Without a major investment in new on-campus housing, it will be difficult to provide the quality and quantity of housing that students and parents demand of a world-class university,” says Associate Vice Chancellor Alan Fish. “We’re positioning ourselves not only to meet current demand, but for the next generation.”

UW–Madison’s current undergraduate housing capacity is 6,669, which ranks eighth among Big Ten Conference schools. Even after building the additional capacity UW–Madison proposes, it would remain eighth among the 11 Big Ten schools.

Construction of two proposed residence halls would allow for the demolition of Ogg Hall’s two outdated 13-story towers. And, development of a third would allow the added capacity needed to meet the demand of first-year students.

One calls for a private developer to design and build a 400-bed residence hall, 130,00 square feet of office space and a 340-stall parking ramp just north of Regent and North Park streets. Part of the land is vacant, part is privately owned and another tract is occupied by a university-owned garage and fleet center, which would be relocated.

UW–Madison could then lease the new facilities from the private developer.

Officials are also pursuing state backing to build a $35.9 million residence hall at the southeast corner of North Park and Dayton streets, a facility that would provide 600 beds. The project would be financed with bonds repaid from student housing revenues.

Those two projects would provide the capacity to allow demolition of Ogg Hall. Architectural and engineering consultants who inspected Ogg Hall determined that it has a number of inadequacies that would be prohibitively costly to correct. Among its faults are inadequate common space and bathrooms, a poorly designed resident floor plan that makes it hard for students to get to know each other and small resident rooms.

“Simple renovation of Ogg Hall would carry a hefty price tag and could reduce the number of available beds, something that would only worsen our housing shortage and further frustrate students and their families,” Evans says.

The university is planning an 800-bed residence hall as part of a public-private partnership that would provide a combination of parking, retail, student services and student housing at the current site of University Square. That would allow the campus to bring together student health, activities and financial services together, all convenient to student housing.

Fish says the university will ask to have that project included on the state’s 2005-07 project list.

The new housing projects will help make possible a bold redevelopment of the East Campus area, which envisions an arts-and-humanities district, new classrooms and a pedestrian mall stretching from Lake Mendota to just north of Regent Street.

“The combination of new student housing, more centralized student services and a lively arts climate will make this a vibrant area for living and learning,” Fish says.