The Tercero Student Housing Phase 3 construction phase will begin in Fall 2011, while two projects that are already near completion the Segundo Life Safety project and the Segundo Services Center (SSC) should also be finished by Fall 2011.
Tercero Phase 3 construction will begin with the demolition of the Thille and Pierce dorm complexes in order to build new student housing, said senior project manager Jill Tomczyk in an e-mail interview. Construction of the new dorms will begin in Fall 2012 and the project is being funded by Student Housing revenues.
“We’re an auxiliary budget,” said associate director of Student Housing Michael Sheehan. “So we don’t receive any student funds and we don’t receive any tuition funds. All our projects are funded by the fiscal management that we do over the years and the long-term planning based on our rate structure for students who live and eat with us.”
This project is expected to have a total cost of $80 million and will be completed by Fall 2014, Sheehan said.
The construction budget for Tercero Phase 3 is estimated at $60 million, Sheehan said. There are two components to the project: the construction costs and the total project delivery cost. The total project cost is closer to $80 million.
“There’s a lot of other significant work that has to go into the project other than just putting up walls,” Sheehan said. “There’s the design of the buildings, the engineering of the buildings, the management of the project, the management and consultants you have to have on board and everyone from civil engineering consultants to electrical, mechanical and structural consultants to inspectors, fire inspectors, etc.”
The new Tercero dorms will include single, double and triple rooms, but will no longer include quads. While the current Thille and Pierce dorms hold 800 students, the new dorms will hold 1200 students.
The dorms will be designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold standards. LEED is a rating system developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), a third-party entity that Student Housing works with to improve its buildings’ environmental efficiency.
LEED New Construction (LEED-NC) refers to buildings that are being built from the ground up to meet these standards, and is used to measure the sustainability and energy efficiency of buildings, Tomczyk said.
In order for a building to reach a certain level of sustainability, it must meet a set of sustainable requirements in categories such as sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, locations and linkages, innovation in design and regional priority.
The second project, the Segundo Services Center (SSC), is also being designed to meet LEED-NC standards and will include increased water efficiency, a high-efficiency heating and cooling system and operable windows, among other environmentally-sustainable features.
The SSC will be a three-story facility providing students with a recreation room, an academic advising center, a computer resource center, a centralized mail service and an area service desk, said senior project manager Vanda Rovis in an e-mail interview. It will also provide administrative offices for Student Housing and Dining Services and have a convenience store.
The construction costs for the SSC will be $15.75 million, Rovis said.
Currently, the project is approximately 80 percent complete and should be finished by early September 2011, Rovis said.
There are 1,825 students currently living in the Segundo residence halls. The SSC will mainly serve the students living in these dorms.
Finally, the Segundo Life Safety project will include safety improvements such as the installation of a modern fire sprinkler system and fire alarm system. It also includes seismic upgrades, Sheehan said.
In addition to safety renovations, the project is also making interior improvements to the student rooms and common areas, said senior project manager Joseph Dickson in an e-mail interview. Total costs for the Segundo Life Safety project will be approximately $11.5 million.
The project includes the Malcolm, Bixby, Ryerson and Gilmore dorms, Dickson said. The project began in June 2010 and should be completed at the beginning of September 2011.
This renovation project is aimed at meeting LEED Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, a sustainability standard for buildings that are being renovated to meet higher standards.
The 2010-11 academic year began with a total of 4,584 students living in UC Davis residence halls, in addition to 60 living in temporary spaces, said Ramona Hernández, associate director of business services, in an e-mail interview. Student Housing is planning on having 4,646 beds available for Fall 2011, depending on the number of students who plan to live in the residence halls.
TRISHA PERKINS can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
