<p>South house renovation. So what is the status of this project? What are the improvements and changes being made? Did they air condition or was that idea dropped? After they are open are there any plans to do any work on any other student housing?</p>
<p>There will be air conditioning, they're making parts of it handicapped-accessible, cleaning up the layout (some kitchens were really too small to use), stripping asbestos, bringing it up to fire code, upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet, and hopefully fixing the giant holes in the ceiling.</p>
<p>Working on other student housing is contingent on money, and they don't have any.</p>
<p>Craig should know more.</p>
<p>When do the North Houses get knocked down and rebuilt?</p>
<p><em>Sigh</em> Okay, this one is messy</p>
<p>Over the past 5 years, we have been in the midst of a student housing revolution, both grad and undergrad. I suggest you look up and read the TURLI report if you're interested in seeing how things were 'ideally' supposed to go.</p>
<p>Grad renovations have been almost totally put off and are not going on currently.</p>
<p>For undergrad on-campus housing, there's North, South, and Avery. South are being renovated and will be available to move in on Dec 15. For North, we're waiting for fundraising to being to knock them down and rebuild them (they're an uncommon 60s architectural style) before they become historical buildings. Avery was built in the 90s, no plans to renovate. There's a new student center that just (was just made public) received a $2.5 million donation from Eli Broad, so that should be built in around 4 years (as opposed to 4+, they weren't raising money).</p>
<p>The South Houses will have air conditioners, better drainage in the courtyards (for rain and purposeful flooding), easier flow (hallways used to be blocked off for some reason or had a dead end)... Jeremy gave a pretty good run-down.</p>
<p>The messy bit is in all the details. There was some late budget issues that caused some problems, but nothing too major. They'll be extremely nice places to live for the next few decades, I imagine.</p>
<p>I was on the committee that helped decide the layout for that student center, about 4 years ago. It's nice to hear that it will actually happen! I hope they've kept all the music stuff in there, as it is sorely needed.</p>
<p>What will the student center have?</p>
<p>It's a moot point, they'll never actually build it. Feel free to imagine whatever you want. I'm going to postulate a stable for student unicorns and pegasi.</p>
<p>I'm hoping for a band/orchestra rehearsal room and sufficient instrument storage space, personally.</p>
<p>Hopefully, floor plans will be made official soon. I'm predicting within the year, but I have seen plans. This building will exist and reasonably soon.</p>
<p>Haha, well, I saw the "final" plans 4 years ago too. I have a nice official-looking book with artistic renderings and everything.</p>
<p>I'll believe bricks and mortar.</p>
<p>Heh, you probably saw the "final" conceptual plans. As far as I've been told, they haven't even hired architects, since they didn't have the money to proceed with the project...</p>
<p>It's amazing what a "little" money combined with "I'll get mad if you don't do something with it fairly quickly" can do. Rosen gave nearly $30 mil to the project, but Broad's $2.5 mil is what's going to accomplish something.</p>
<p>Well, I really hope that it gets built sometime in the next 5 years... 2007-10 I'm likely to be at Caltech and Allen Gross said the orchestra would do something big and flashy (I'm hoping Beethoven 9!) to open the hall.</p>