Housing plans not yet finalized

Lobo Village on south campus is nearing completion, but UNM officials said main campus housing construction plans, entailing the addition of nearly 2,000 beds, have yet to be finalized.

UNM Real Estate Director Kim Murphy said American Campus Community’s plans to revamp main campus construction are still hazy.

“We don’t even have the whole plan,” he said. “It’s developing.”
The next step in the process is consideration of the “strategic housing plan” that ACC will deliver this month, according to Lobo Development’s latest presentation to the regents.

Lobo Development will hold an open forum Nov. 30 at 4 p.m. in the SUB to discuss the strategic housing plan. It will consider the plan and present it to the regents’ Finance and Facilities Committee in early December.

Amy Coburn, of UNM Planning and Design, said planning workshop attendees came up with three plans for housing during meetings held since August.
“We basically generated a lot of information at the workshops, and ACC is the beneficiary of that information,” she said.

ACC has the final say about the plans, but Murphy said one of the workshop-generated plans will likely be adopted. Murphy wouldn’t specify what the favored plan is.

“We think there is a favored alternative, and we expect that the strategic housing plan will reflect that,” he said.

The workshop-generated plans share the same Phase I, which entails the demolishing of the Santa Ana dorm and part of D lot to make way for dorms. Subsequent phases could involve the demolition of Coronado and Alvarado dorms, Oñate Hall, the grassy field across the street from Coronado dorm and part of Johnson Field.

Murphy said he expects Phase I to be completed by August 2012. Planning and location considerations included vehicle circulation, pedestrians and bikes, building conditions and campus boundaries, according to the regents’ presentation.

Of course, Murphy said, nothing is definite until ACC’s plans are finalized and reviewed and the University enters a main campus ground-lease agreement with ACC.

Murphy and Coburn said they hope more students will participate in future planning decisions, and workshops will continue as the strategic housing plan progresses.

“There are lots of different perspectives on this thing, but this is a really, really important student-housing initiative,” Murphy said. “We want to get student involvement, and it’s not something that’s being done behind closed doors.”