UC Riverside will launch a major student housing expansion Monday, Dec. 17, with construction beginning on the Dundee Residence Hall and Glasgow Dining Project.
The project will add 820 beds and an 830-seat dining area to meet growing student housing needs. The buildings are scheduled to be completed by fall 2020.
Fencing will start to go up around the construction area on Dec. 17 and some changes to area pathways and roads will be made during the winter break.
The new projects will be built where parking lot 22 now sits behind Aberdeen-Inverness Residence Hall. That parking lot will be permanently closed and residents who park there will have to use lot 21 or the Big Springs parking structure at Glen Mor.
Lot 22 was underutilized due to the campus policy of not allowing first-year students to bring vehicles, said Raoul Amescua, UCR’s executive director of Real Estate Services and Asset Management.
The new residence hall will cater mainly to freshmen, for whom there is a pressing need for additional residence hall housing, he said.
The project will consist of three separate structures on approximately 4.5-acres: a 51,000-square-foot, two-story dining facility and two seven-story residence halls totaling 176,000 square feet.
Amescua describes the planned buildings as “the next evolution of UCR design,” paying tribute to the campus history with a modern look.
“We’re definitely extending a hand back to the early framework of what you see around campus, but it’s not mimicking the classic mid-century architecture we have here at UCR,” he said.
The project will cost around $150 million including financing costs, and is being financed through tax-exempt bonds sold through a public-private partnership with developer American Campus Communities.
Dundee-Glasgow is the first step in a major expansion in student housing. Planned next is the North District project on a 50-acre site on the northern part of the campus that will deliver 1,500 beds in its first phase.
With the student population growing about 32 percent over the past decade, the campus has seen a pressing demand for more student housing, according to a project report that went before the UC Regents. A shortage of housing supply in the Riverside housing market has also driven up rents and lowered vacancy rates, the report said.
Over the past decade, UCR built the 1,300-unit apartment-style Glen Mor, purchased two apartment complexes that provided another 860 beds, and converted double-occupancy rooms to triple-occupancy.
