LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - The future of housing options at the University of Wyoming - and the fate of UW’s aging residence halls - are now in the hands of a legislative task force formed to provide guidance on the expensive process of revamping campus housing.
With two different 10-year housing plans commissioned since 2015 - one before and one after the state financial crisis - UW is looking to replace or revitalize its residence halls, some of which are half a century old and all of which are falling behind the standards set by competitor institutions.
On top of recruiting new students, both plans called for establishing a range of suite-options, encouraging sophomores and upperclassmen to continue living on campus.
“There is no doubt our students prefer to move off campus after freshman year,” UW Vice President for Student Affairs Sean Blackburn said.
But a new bill passed during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2018 budget session put UW’s housing plans on hold, establishing a mixed group of stakeholders to re-examine the university’s housing situation and put forward plans that cannot be implemented before 2019, the Laramie Boomerang reported .
UW administrators presented the most recent housing plan - a potentially $245 million project to tear down and rebuild two residence halls while heavily renovating the remaining four - to the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee in January, ahead of the 2018 session.
The UW Board of Trustees accepted - but did not approve - the plan later that month, angling to approach the plan’s individual suggestions one-by-one.
The state-funded capital construction bill, signed into law by Gov. Matt Mead in March, established a task force of legislators, university officials and other appointees to review this housing plan and make recommendations before the 2019 general session.
The bill also imposed a moratorium on the demolition or construction laid out in the unapproved housing plan, delaying the start of any housing revamp that is eventually approved.
The task force met Tuesday for a tour of the UW campus and both a review of the 2017 housing plan and a review of an earlier plan from 2015 put together by Mahlum Architects.
Mahlum presented the board with a 10-year, $200-400 million improvement plan that involved tearing down and rebuilding all of the residence halls, but this plan was set aside when, in 2016, the Legislature slashed the university’s budget by roughly $42 million.
“The economic reality of a $200-400 million purely state-funded plan, once the economy dipped in 2015, just didn’t seem realistic,” Blackburn said.
Facing a fiscal crisis that would eventually result in the elimination or departure of 370 university employees, ambitious plans to make UW’s housing options more competitive with other institutions in the region were no longer an option.
“We hit the biggest fiscal crisis in the state’s history,” said Speaker of the House Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, who chairs the task force. “This went on the backburner.”
The 2017 housing plan, developed by KSQ Design called for the demolition of just two residence halls - UW’s oldest, Hill and Crane halls - and the renovation of the remaining four halls, among other road and facility improvements.
Sen. Glenn Moniz, R-Laramie, said the task force should consider student interests and needs as it crafted its recommendations, which are due to the Joint Appropriations Committee and Capital Financing and Investment Select Committee by Nov. 1.
“I’d like to get feedback from a variety of students on what their preferences are,” Moniz said.
Blackburn said gathering this information before the task force’s next meeting would be difficult, given that most students are studying for finals this week, taking exams next week and will be gone from campus the week after that.
UW Trustee Kermit Brown suggested these students moving off-campus might be the best source of information regarding what needs to be improved. He suggested surveying students who chose not to return to the residence halls.
“If you’re really going to get an accurate picture out of that exercise, you’ve got to find some students living off campus and hopefully they can identify for us why they’re living off campus - what it is about their situation that they like,” he said.
The task force agreed to meet on a roughly monthly basis. The legislation forming the group tasks it with examining the feasibility of public-private partnerships for funding construction projects, the possible relocation of fraternity and sorority houses to Harney Street and the impact of the task force’s recommendations on private housing offerings in Laramie.
___
Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.