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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, July 11, 2006

New era for campus housing at UH-Manoa

By Loren Moreno
Advertiser Staff Writer

Demolition began yesterday on Frear Hall at the UH-Manoa campus. An environmentally friendly dorm will take its place and will include such features as social lounges and private accommodations. But some students worry that the cost to live in the building will be too high.

RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser

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A $61 million dorm development project at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa is being called an example of "the future of residence halls" at a local gathering of national higher education officials.

As the demolition of Frear Hall began yesterday on the UH-Manoa campus, plans for its replacement received praise from some members of the Association of College and University Housing Officers, made up of campus housing officials from across the nation, for its sustainable and student-friendly design.

That group and many others gathered at the Hawai'i Convention Center in Waikiki yesterday for The Campus of the Future higher education convention.

"This reflects the future of residence halls," said Eddie Hull, dean of residence life and executive director of housing at Duke University. "Buildings are being designed now from the perspective of the experience you want someone to have, what they're going to feel about it. In many ways, where an institution asks its students to live is a reflection on how the institution values those students."

Features planned for the new Manoa dorms such as private accommodations, social lounges and even a gym reflect a shift in the old perspective of dorms being "just a place for students to sleep," said Michael Coakley, assistant vice president for student life at Northern Illinois University.

"We just don't want places for people to sleep. We want places where students can be engaged in their learning, where they can live," he said.

Much of the ideas incorporated into the design of UH-Manoa's Frear Hall replacement come from the Association of College and University Housing Officers' 21st Century Project, an initiative involving hundreds of university housing officials, said Jason Wills, vice president of American Campus Communities, the Texas-based student housing developer charged with building and managing the new dorms.

"This project really focuses on the philosophies of creating a community and reflecting a Hawaiian sense of place," Wills said.

He also said there is a big emphasis on the building being environmentally sustainable by using building orientation to pick up trade winds and energy-saving features that could lower utility costs for the university by more than $200,000 a year.

Demolition of the unoccupied dorm began yesterday with the student lounge building. The Frear building closest to Dole Street will then be demolished, followed by the building adjacent to it, according to Swinerton Builders, the general contractors hired to demolish and rebuild Frear.

Demolition is scheduled to be completed as early as next week; construction could begin as early as October, Wills said.

But while the dorm plans are being called "forward thinking," student government members at UH-Manoa question whether the new dorms will indeed be student-friendly.

Members of the Associated Students of the University of Hawai'i-Manoa have said they are concerned that dorm rooms lack common space and that the cost to live in the dorms will be too high for most students.

Students can expect to pay about $7,000 to $9,000 per year for the new dorm space, according to American Campus Communities. At present, dorm students pay $2,817 to $5,527 a year for housing, according to the UH-Manoa Web site.

Students also said they were concerned with the lack of student government involvement in the planning of the dorms.

Wills said his company will form an ad hoc committee composed of faculty, administrators and student government members to discuss changes that could be made to the dorm design plans. While Wills said the layout of the rooms could not be changed, he said the company is willing to solicit student input on other aspects such as layout of building common spaces, interior design and management policies.

The dorms are scheduled to be completed in fall 2008.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.