Bulls in 2019 will likely have a new residence hall to call home.
As part of USF St. Petersburg’s Vision 20/20 Strategic Plan, the university is moving forward in the creation of a new residence hall for students.
After getting approval from the USF Board of Trustees, the university is beginning the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) process, which will give residence hall builders and developers nationwide the opportunity to submit a proposal for the new building.
Scott Hendershot, USF St. Petersburg’s housing assignments and operations coordinator, expects the first phase of the ITN process to be sent out by early October.
“Once the ITN goes out, there’s about a month where people can submit their proposals,” said Hendershot.
Next, a selection committee made up of students, faculty, staff and community members will read the proposals and narrow down the pool to five or six possible builders.
The second phase of the ITN process will focus on providing the remaining builders with more details about what USFSP is looking for in the residence hall.
The university plans to finalize the residence hall’s vendor by the end of 2016 or early 2017.
“It’s a pretty in-depth [process],” said Hendershot.
The proposed building site for the new residence hall is across from the parking garage on 6th Avenue South and 3rd Street South.
According to Hendershot, the new residence hall will be either eight or nine stories tall, with a traditional dining hall on the first floor. The university is also requesting in the ITN that both single and double rooms be built, so students will have different types of housing options.
“It’s not going to be apartment-style, like RHO, and it’s not going to be the single corridor like USC,” said Hendershot.
“It’ll be kind of like little pods, where there’s multiple bedrooms and a bathroom inside a suite. There’s no kitchen, but we will have a community kitchen on the first floor, or maybe even on each floor.”
Building is planned to begin in early to mid 2018, with students moving in as early as 2019.
The new residence hall could help USFSP achieve its goal of reaching an enrollment of 10,000 students by 2025. According to the Vision 20/20 Strategic Plan, a third of these students would ideally live on or near campus.
Currently, there are 676 residential students at USFSP. 377 of these students live in Residence Hall One, while 240 live in the University Student Center. 59 students live in the Residence Hall Hilton.
The additional residence hall would provide 550 more beds for Bulls.
This number was determined by a housing demands study that was sent out to students in 2015. The university also held focus groups and met with students to learn about their on-campus needs.
“After the study was done, it showed that we do have a need for more residential space,” said Hendershot.
Although USFSP is known to some as a commuter school, the creation of an additional residence hall may encourage students to embrace campus.
“I think that right now we’re in this phase of transition,” said Hendershot.
“While most of our students do live off-campus, I think that’s slowly starting to change. Even this year, you can see more activity happening on the weekends. By adding a new hall, 550 more students [will be] living here on campus. That’s just over 1,000 students that are going to be actually living, breathing this campus. I think that it’s so important for students to have that college experience while they’re here.”
