University officials have abandoned plans to seek funding for a 750-bed dorm on South Campus this year after concluding the University System of Maryland won't be able to finance all the administrators' requested housing projects.
Statewide competition for system-backed loans has tightened in recent years, as housing demand has increased at this university and others, System Vice Chancellor Joe Vivona said. Meanwhile, administrators here - who recently rolled out a comprehensive master plan for on-campus housing - said they'll have to pick and choose which projects they'll pursue, as the housing crunch only seems to tighten.
Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Pat Mielke said the university will focus on a 650-bed North Campus dorm, set to be finished in the Denton Community in fall 2011, brushing aside hopes for the South Campus dorm - at least for this year.
Mielke said she hopes the university will bring the 750-bed building, modeled after the South Campus Commons, before the Board of Regents, the university system's governing board, next year. But she added that system officials told the university they want to see progress toward new housing in the private sector before they would authorize any more debt.
"We were concerned about the debt on the system as a whole if we went forward with both of these projects," Vice President for Administrative Affairs Doug Duncan said. "In the meantime, this will help some. I think we reached a conclusion that's going to get housing built on campus fairly quickly."
But even for the future, Vivona said he didn't expect the system's rush of construction requests to trail off. And as the system's capacity to take on debt for new projects increases every year, he said it was too early to tell whether they'd keep pace with demand.
"[The university] has done a very good job of managing its finances," Vivona said. "But I just can't make a prediction at this time."
After more than a thousand students found out they couldn't live on campus last week, the Residence Halls Association voted to apply pressure on the regents to prioritize College Park.
"We complain about housing every year," said Matt Verghese, an RHA senator. "The only solution is to make this a priority and make sure these beds are built on campus. E-mail them over and over again."
For this year, Duncan said the North Campus dorm had a better chance of winning University System approval because it's replacement housing for the Leonardtown apartments, which East Campus developers will tear down to make way for the 38-acre development.
In the meantime, the university decided it will take $35 million from East Campus developer Foulger-Pratt Argo, originally earmarked for the North Campus dorm, and use it to fund more housing projects elsewhere on the campus. Administrators said they had not decided where the money would go, but acknowledged the possibility of using it to pay for the South Campus dorm. With the North Campus dorm expected to cost around $80 million, that money would not be enough to fully fund the project.
A 368-bed public-private dorm has already been approved for South Campus.
Mielke said because the North Campus dorm would house mostly freshman, it was probably a better choice than the South Campus dorm, which would house upperclassmen. However, she would be happy for approval on any kind of project.
"I need housing," she said. "I'll take what I can get."
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