Officially announced yesterday. Here are the Boyer letter and news release:
"I am delighted to share that today the University of Chicago will announce plans to build the Woodlawn Residential Commons, a new residential hall for College students. Located between Woodlawn and University Avenues, just north of 61st Street, the Woodlawn Residential Commons will house approximately 1,200 undergraduate students and resident staff in 11 three-floor Houses, along with a new dining commons and community amenities for each House, such as lounges, study rooms, and outdoor spaces.
This new facility continues the University’s commitment to further the educational and personal success of students by developing supportive and intellectually stimulating residential communities. We know that your child selected the College for a distinct style of intellectual engagement and for a particular culture of learning. We believe that experience should not be confined to time in our classrooms. The Woodlawn Residential Commons will enable us to offer more high-quality resources for community living as well as an environment designed to foster personal and intellectual development.
Construction is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2018 and be completed in advance of the 2020-2021 academic year. I look forward to providing you with additional details, at that time.
Sincerely,
John W. Boyer
Dean of the College
Martin A. Ryerson
Distinguished Service Professor of History"
Looking at the map, it will be South of the Midway and I think occupy less square feet than North. Room for 1200 is 50% larger, which means it will be tall, or start well underground, but I’m betting tall. Or my mental scaling is way off.
From the map, it appears that it will be tucked behind NORC, on approximately 1/2 the space of Renee-Granville-Grossman to the west. RGG houses 811 students total in both East and West and is around 10(?) stories (guessing on that). It’ll be interesting to see how they configure this new building.
Yeah. I think the I-House and Stony will be re-purposed after the new dorm is finished.
I-House started hosting undergrads several years back when North was not ready and more students were enrolled. It will be returned to grads or internationals.
Stony is the only satellite dorm and it is not close to dinning halls or center campus.
Eventually there will be four big dorms plus Snell and BJ. Those dorms together will host about 4000 undergrads which is about 2/3 total undergrads.
There will be four dinning halls which is a big improvement when there were only two before North is opened.
It makes sense for Stony and I-House to re-purpose (or return) to grad housing. Is New Grad still open? What other grad housing does UChicago have at this point? This isn’t an issue for the College families but the university seems to be a tad short in the grad housing arena! Sure, most will opt for rental but New Grad had a lot of B-school students (both MBA and PhD) as well as law students once upon a time. Are those kids all opting to live downtown now?
Also, really do hope they don’t get rid of BJ or Snitch. The shiny new dorms just don’t have the charm - and certainly not the history - of those older res. halls. And while this is anecdotal, it’s my impression that the older places are more amenable to having a vibrant house system. Do others have the same impression?
I agree @JBStillFlying, if I were the student instead of my son, I’d be all over Snitch. However, location to the field house was his biggest draw. That and being in the new and shiny. I’m not sure he understands the patina and character of something with history yet. Plus established houses with years of tradition and alumni that come back to see their old home has to be worth something, right? He did put it down as his #3, but he was able to put his deposit in when he received his likely letter back in November, so I think he’ll probably be in North.
@BrianBoller - he’ll get his first choice and he has plenty of time to make that. North filled up quick when it first opened, IIRC.
New and shiny has its benefits over “charming” (my D in BJ is getting used to the fun of the old-style heating system and leaving her window cracked - and frozen - open to cool the room down). They obviously needed to tear down some of the not-so-charming older dorms and of course new and shiny is going to replace that. I just hope they don’t prioritize that over their two oldest dorms.
As @JBStillFlying noted, the new dorm will be right behind 1155 East 60th Street, a totally nondescript building IMHO.
I have walked around that area a few times last fall. I thought the Administration should build the new dorm at the big parking lot at 60th and Woodlawn. But then I find out that it is already reserved for the Rubinstein Forum.
Around Thanksgiving I heard the rumor that the new dorm would definitely be built at 61st and Dorchester and right across the Power Plant. That made no sense to me as the location was even more remote from campus and I doubt many parents would be thrilled that their kids would be living right next to the Power Plant and potentially all the fume.
There is no more wide open lot north of 60th Street to build a mega dorm but there are still plenty of empty lots south of it. The University has massively cleaned up the area around 61st and 62nd Street. I actually walked around that area a few times in the fall and it looked like Hyde Park despite it being actually in Woodlawn. I am going to be honest: I would consider reckless to go to that area in the 1980’s when I was in GSB.
The only big question will be, as @HydeSnark has noted before, is that there is supposed to be an implicit agreement between the University and Woodlawn for the University not to expand further south into Woodlawn. I wonder whether the new dorm will violate the agreement.
In addition, with the 1155 E. 60th Street blocking most of the Midway Plaisance view, the new dorm will most likely be a really tall high rise so that it can have an unobstructed vista. But will that make it stick out like a sore thumb? Well, we shall see but U of C does have a good track record in the last 15 years erecting new buildings in harmony with the main campus (Max P being the exception ).
No - this was already university owned land. They promised not to build more south of 61st and that was already broken.
A lot of campus activists are pretty upset about this and, while I think the concerns that the University is trying to shift the focus of campus south with the end goal of gentrifying Woodlawn, I don’t think this dorm in itself is a bad thing.
Not a big fan of the architecture firm they chose though. But I guess they can’t afford Jeanne Gang for every dorm…
Hey, Max P looks good from a certain angle and at certain times of the year . .
RGG which essentially the same location N-S, is around 10 stories (via visual inspection) but occupies what looks to be about twice the amount of real estate. And houses only 2/3 of the students this new building is supposed to house. So this baby will be tall. However, given the size of that parking lot at 60th and Woodlawn and also eyeing the image from the press release, wouldn’t the Rubinstein Forum be an even more intrusive building? Looks totally cool, however.
RGG supposedly was constructed with approval from the Woodlawn community, and Logan is pretty tall isn’t it? So they’ve built some notable stuff on the south campus. A big change from 30+ years ago! @85bears46 wasn’t the GSB career center also in that general area? I recall it being near 61st and Ellis but can’t remember the exact location and wondering if that buiding is even there now. Did they tear it down to build the Logan Center?
Update: just read Snark’s post. The tension continues. But help me out - what has UChicago built south of 61st?
With your back to the dorm as you walk away on move-out day?
Rubinstein is going to be eight stories tall, and border the Midway (not 61st). By comparison, Logan is eleven stories, and the new hotel at 60th and Dorchester will be 15. At this rate, Rubinstein will blend right into the jumble of 60th/61st Street high-rises
The Orthogenic School, which opened in 2014, is two blocks south of 61st. The first University building in that area in about 50 years, it was sold to Woodlawn leaders as an open and welcoming space for the community, then designed as a giant brick wall. Which is one reason (among many) that further University expansion still gets a frosty reception in Woodlawn.
More recently, the newly built charter school on 63rd opened a few weeks ago. The University did a much better job with this expansion, setting aside most spaces at the charter for Woodlawn students, and was clear about what its plans were from the start. Charters are controversial, this hasn’t erased 50 years of ill will, and the university’s actions in other areas probably aren’t helping. Still, simply by paying a modicum of attention to the community’s perspective and being honest about its intentions, the University handled this project much better than previous efforts.
Manfredi’s a graduate of UChicago ('79) (and Notre Dame). Must have gotten his architecture training at ND. I would guess he would be knowledgeable of the history of UChicago in Hyde Park and its relationship to the neighborhoods over the years.
With construction starting this summer, should they not have elevations and perspectives done by now? Not sure how reliable construction schedules are for UChicago projects, but a nice concept drawing would have answered many of these questions.
@JBStillFlying I vaguely remember that there might be some sort of career center on the 60th street but I don’t recall whether that was just for GSB or for the whole university. It would have been a long walk in suits and ties across Midway in winter to go there for interviews. Anyhow most of my interviews were done at Rosenwald. Yes, current college kids, Rosenwald used to be part of the three buildings complex (Walker + Rosenwald + Stuart) that constituted the Graduate School of Business (GSB) campus. Harry would have been kissing his girlfriend right in front of the GSB complex while Sally was waiting in her Volkswagen in the iconic 1989 movie.
@HydeSnark Personally, I would consider architecture preference as almost a purely function of individual taste. Still it is hard to explain what went through the Board of Trustee mind when they put Max P right next to Reg. IMHO, it was like an architectural horror show on Halloween that the University has somehow forgotten to remove ;). On the other hand, Jeanne Gang has done a great job on Campus North and she deservedly won her AIA award. But I sure hope that the University will not erect another gleaming white tower south of 60th street with the backside of concrete facing south. I really like the Gordon Parks Hall (Thank you George Lucas from a Star Wars fan ) at Lab Schools with its glass facade that evokes the image of Gothic building on Main Quadrangle. I hope the new Woodlawn Residential Commons will take the same approach.
The university announced plans for a new 1,300-bed residence hall on the corner of Woodlawn Avenue and 61st Street. When the Woodlawn Residential Commons opens in 2020, it will mean that for the first time ever more U. of C. undergraduates will live in Woodlawn than in Hyde Park.
It’s the biggest and likely final step in a $450 million-plus plan for the university to make good on its promise of a Hogwarts-style dorm life for more of its students and to get the university on the same level as its peers in offering more and better residential options on campus. What’s evolved over time is a slow migration of U. of C. students out of Hyde Park and into Woodlawn.
Woodlawn now has the chance to increasingly become the neighborhood where the students live, while Hyde Park remains more for faculty.
).
) at Lab Schools with its glass facade that evokes the image of Gothic building on Main Quadrangle. I hope the new Woodlawn Residential Commons will take the same approach.
