Eastern Kentucky University is moving forward with plans to upgrade student housing on the Richmond campus. The EKU Board of Regents received an update on the project Monday. Plans call for tearing down three dorms, as well as a portion of family housing, and constructing new facilities.
EKU Executive Director of Student Life and Auxiliary Services Billy Martin says about 1,500 new suite style dorm rooms are in the offing that will include "an adjoining-like bathroom that's shared." Martin says "a super-suite will have a common living space as well as a bathroom and more privatization with your housing spaces so the bedrooms will be closed off kind of a thing."
The total cost of new construction and renovations is $75 million. Plans have already been approved by the Kentucky General Assembly. Martin says it will be a staged transition. "We cannot knock down or demolish Todd and Dupree until the Martin and Brockton new construction is finished," added Martin.
The end product will be some 1,500 to 1,600 new suite-style rooms. Martin says the overall residence hall capacity is not expected to change. "It will remain about the same," he says. "We're gonna keep it around 5,000 to 5,100 because that's about what our population has consistently been."
All new construction should be completed in 2018. Martin Hall and part of Brockton family housing is slated to be razed in early 2016.?
