Syracuse University’s next door neighbors are getting a new home. Transfer students to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry will soon have a new residence hall to call their own.

As reported by The Knothole, ESF’s student-run newspaper, the school is undertaking a new project, which would provide housing for approximately 300 students. The college is planning to build the new facility behind Lawrinson Hall, on Oakland Street to the west of ESF’s campus, said Cornelius Murphy, president of ESF.

‘We would be building a new residence facility from the ground up,’ Murphy said.

The main reason behind the project is there is insufficient housing for ESF students, Murphy said. The top two floors of Sadler Hall on the SU campus are reserved for ESF students, and some ESF students are also scattered throughout Lawrinson Hall.

Approximately 2,200 students are currently enrolled in ESF, Murphy said.

Aside from transfer students, the new residence might also be used for incoming ESF freshmen and international graduate students, he said.

Murphy expects the residence facility to be ready for transfer students by August 2010.

The entire project, which will cost approximately $25 million, will be privately financed. The money will come from a nonprofit subsidiary corporation, which has already invested $3.5 million into the project, Murphy said.

A feasibility study has already been completed to determine if the location and plans for the project are realistic. Interviews with developers will begin soon to execute the designs of the residence hall.

‘We’re talking to developers,’ Murphy said. ‘We need to make sure we appropriately reflect their input. It would either be one building or a cluster of buildings.’

The new residence facility would be townhouse-like housing, Murphy said.

‘I’d say it would be a combination between South Campus and a regular residence hall,’ he said.

Meghan Johnstone, a sophomore transfer student in ESF, said the project can only benefit the school.

‘I think it’s a great idea because I know some ESF students feel it would be nice to have our own dorms,’ she said.

Johnstone said she enjoys living in Sadler with fellow ESF students but also enjoys interacting with SU students and likes living in the same building with them. She said she feels like she is a part of the SU experience.

If she were a transfer student entering in 2010, though, Johnstone said she would probably choose to live in the new residence hall.

‘It probably would have brought me closer to ESF,’ Johnstone said. ‘I consider myself right now half SU, half ESF.’

Kevin Reagan, a junior in ESF, lives in Lawrinson Hall. Because the housing project will be directed primarily at transfer students, he does not think it will influence many ESF students.

Reagan said he would rather live in an all ESF dorm because he would be able to relate to the people with whom he lives and find people who share his classes and major. On his floor in Lawrinson, all the residents are SU students, none of whom are in his classes or major.

‘I’m not ever going be a transfer student so I guess it will never really affect me,’ Reagan said, ‘but I know there’s a pretty big housing crunch in ESF.’

azmeola@syr.edu

Published on April 22, 2008 at 12:00 pm