Above photo: A rendering of the 550-bed housing complex planned for Sixth Avenue S. between Third and Fourth Street. The university’s third residence hall that was originally scheduled to be completed by fall 2019 will now be completed by 2020. Courtesy of USFSP
By Emily Vsetula
Those looking forward to the new dormitories at USF St. Petersburg will have to wait another year.
The Board of Trustees voted to remove the proposed top floor conference center, which will delay the building’s completion until fall 2020. The dormitories were initially expected to be completed in fall 2019.
The conference center was axed due to a lack of external funding, causing the project to go through a redesign and delaying construction.
The setback won’t come cheap, as the price of the project is expected to increase from $49.5 to $54 million as a result of the delay.
“Prices go up over time,” said Martin Tadlock, interim regional chancellor. “The price of materials change, and in the redesign there were some additional structural changes to the facility that cost more money.”
The structural modifications were necessary to make the supplementary building sturdier than the previous design presented.
The university is in partnership with EdR, a collegiate housing developer that has specialized in high-quality collegiate housing communities since 1964. The project is a public private partnership (P3), which allows USF St. Petersburg to take on the construction project with minimal risk and financial impact.
The 10-story residence hall will be built on Sixth Avenue S., between Third and Fourth Street. The university’s current residence halls are at 112 percent capacity, so this new project will accommodate some of those overages.
“We’ve run the price comparisons to all of the local apartment complexes here and it is, of course, more affordable for students and that’s the goal,” said Tadlock.
As the number of students living on campus grows, another predicament arises:
USF St. Petersburg has a limited amount of parking spaces for students, including seven floors in the parking garage and several smaller parking lots scattered around campus.
Around 550 new students are expected to inhabit the new dorms, causing an increased demand for parking.
“We have signed an agreement with PSTA and the city of St. Petersburg to bring electric buses to the city and an electric charging station, adjacent to the new facility,“ Tadlock said. “That will be in place within the next year.”
New students often feel discouraged from bringing their cars to St. Petersburg because there simply isn’t enough room on campus.
“In the short-term, what we really want to do is encourage more public transportation, more bicycle accessibility, more walking,” Tadlock said.
Administration is working to create more student parking on campus, including an expansion of the parking garage.
“It’s going forward, and there’s strong commitment to it,” said Tadlock. “We’re excited to get it done.”
