Student housing

New construction starts in Seattle screeched to a stop, as they did in the rest of the country, once the recession began in 2008. One exception has been Paul Allen's continuing development of the South Lake Union area -- his financial situation is such that he doesn't need to twist bankers' arms to borrow money. The other is residence hall construction at the University of Washington.

I rarely mosey over into the West Campus area, a large, slightly grungy area of land adjacent to the western border of the bucolic main campus. The West Campus is not so much a "campus" as it is simply property that's owned by the university. It consists of entire city blocks, or portions thereof, located on the Seattle street grid. Two large dormitories were built on the West Campus in the 1950's, and the law school moved into a highly unpopular new building facing those dorms in 1974 (and has since moved on to a larger and more elegant new building, located back on the main campus). Besides these three structures, the West Campus area for generations has consisted mainly of shabby residential homes converted to university offices, a few old apartment houses adapted for student housing, and -- most significantly -- numerous large university parking lots.

During the past year, however, several large dormitories -- "residence halls," I guess we now call them -- have been under construction. I decided to wander around on foot and check them out. At least three buildings are nearing the finishing stage of construction. They are huge! They are so large, and of such bulk, that they make the area virtually unrecognizable to someone who hasn't been there for a couple of years. Furthermore, demolition and clearing is nearing completion near-by for at least two more buildings of equal size.

The U-Dub has had a housing shortage for a number of years. The school has been shoehorning three roommates into rooms designed for two, and has converted common rooms and lounges into temporary housing. I haven't personally visited one of these sardine-packed dorms, but newspaper descriptions bring to mind emergency army housing in World War II. Or life aboard a submarine as shown in WWII movies.

The new dorms will provide housing for about 2,400 more students. This will, at least temporarily, alleviate increased demand that has resulted from the increasing size of the university (now about 43,000), an increased number of out-of-state and foreign students, the increased cost of private housing, and a renewed desire by students to live on-campus in a community setting with other students.

While most of the older residence halls -- those located on the main campus -- tend to be focused inward toward the campus, the University hopes that the new dorms now under construction will have a more outward focus, a focus that encourages students to be engaged with their urban setting as well as with college life. Certain architectural features have been designed with that goal specifically in mind. I suppose that one could look at NYU as an example of what the administration has in mind: NYU's academic and residential buildings are all located on the Greenwich Village street grid, not set apart on an enclosed campus. When I visit the Village, I can rarely tell whether any given building is part of the "campus."

How this approach will work at the UW remains to be seen. The hope is obviously to combine the traditional appeal of private, off-campus housing with the security and engagement in student communal life offered by campus residential housing. But however it works out, the effort is certainly changing -- and changing for the better -- a formerly somewhat shabby and under-utilized portion of Seattle's University District.

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Somehow, I sense your question: And this post is interesting why? And I can't answer it, except to say that I myself am fascinated by (1) the UW campus; (2) building construction; and (3) student life. I'm not satisfied that I've written a post that creates or satisfies similar interests in my readers. All I can say is: "Merry Christmas!"