Penn State Intercom......April 25, 2002

Penn College board OKs
student housing complex

The design for a two-building, 365-bed addition to the College West student-housing complex at Pennsylvania College of Technology has been approved by the Penn College Board.

The board accepted the plans presented by Murray Associates Architects, Harrisburg. Completion of the addition is expected by the beginning of the fall 2003 semester. The addition will increase the number of beds available in college-operated, on-campus housing to more than 1,400.

The work will be financed by a $28.5-million-to-$32-million bond issue that was approved by the Penn College board at its February meeting. The bond issue also will enable the college to renovate the former HON Industries manufacturing facility to accommodate space-restricted majors, refurbish the 89-year-old Klump Academic Center and retrofit four other buildings on the main campus for additional instructional uses.

The new buildings will be four stories tall, providing a total of 130,000 square feet of additional space. The buildings will feature brick-and-stucco exteriors and will house two-bedroom, one-bedroom and studio apartment units. The 365 beds include 356 for students, eight for resident assistants and one for a professional staff member.

The college began offering on-campus housing in 1997. Typically, there is a waiting list of several hundred students for spaces in the three on-campus facilities.

In a presentation to the board last fall, Senior Vice President William J. Martin said the number of Penn College students who do not hail from Northcentral Pennsylvania has risen by 55 percent in the past five years, and students increasingly report that finding adequate housing "is a major source of concern."

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