RIVERSIDE, Calif.—Architect Solomon Cordwell Buenz and general contractor McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. are pressing forward on the $285 million North District Phase 2 Student Housing Development at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). The 424,000-square-foot project is meant to address a dearth of affordable housing at both UCR and the nearby Riverside Community College District (RCCD), which collectively have seen a tremendous increases in recent enrollment.

“We can’t solve all the problems that are challenges for students, but we can solve those two by bringing students to the campus, letting them live here, wear their UCR or RCC T-shirt, and just be part of the campus,” Kim Wilcox, chancellor of UCR, said of the project work. “It breaks down a barrier and, aside from the housing, it provides [students] with a different sense of themselves.”

The development will offer 429 single- and double-occupancy apartments ranging from one to four bedrooms. Each living unit will offer a kitchen and living room space, high-speed Wi-Fi and air conditioning. Communal spaces will include dedicated study areas as well as a café/market, recreational fields and a public park.

The project, funded partially by the State Higher Education Student Housing Grant Program, increases the number of available student beds at UCR and RCC to 1,568.

“The McCarthy team is proud to be part of this revolutionary project, which helps bridge the gap between larger universities and community colleges,” said Sarah Carr, vice president of McCarthy. “This housing development will provide affordable options that will enhance graduation rates not only for UCR students, but for Riverside City College students as well—a benefit to the entire community.”

Wolde-Ab Isaac, RCCD chancellor, added that this joint housing project “is meticulously and intentionally designed to break persistent cultural and psychological barriers that many of our first-generation and low-income students experience through a process of total immersion into the UC system.

“My hope is this unique partnership and innovative approach will serve as a model for others to emulate around the state.”

The first students are anticipated to commence moving into the North District Phase 2 Student Housing Development sometime in 2025.

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., the oldest privately held national construction company in the United States. Based in St. Louis, the general contracting firm operates from California locations including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, San Diego, Newport Beach and San Francisco. The firm, which is 100-percent employee-owned, is ranked the country’s 19th largest domestic building by ENR, and employs over 6,000 people.

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INDIANAPOLIS—The Residential College (ResCo) at Butler University, which was first constructed in 1988, is getting ready for a major makeover. The facility, which is home mostly to first-year students at this Midwestern college, will undergo some $20 million in improvements over the next two years, according to the university.

Architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz has designed the new look and feel for the ResCo, which will be realized by general contractor Turner Construction. Eighteen rooms were remodeled earlier as a test case, and commencing this summer, the remainder of the building’s rooms will be upgraded to match that schematic. The residence hall’s dining commons will also be renovated during the summer of 2023.

Re-envisioning the interior entails a new palette of muted colors and midcentury modern furniture. On the exterior, new patios will be designed as natural gathering spaces so that students can converse as well as dine in the outdoors in the warmer months.

In a recent news release from the university, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Frank E. Ross said that the renovation will allow for a modern vision of student life at Butler.

“Just as we are committed to providing our students with top-tier academics at Butler, we aim to create an excellent out-of-class experience for them,” Ross said, “and that includes our residential communities that are home for many Butler students.”

Butler University is home to 4,500 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the school as the top regional university in the Midwest, and The Princeton Review includes Butler on its list of “best colleges.”

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CHICAGO—Thornton Tomasetti, the international engineering firm, provided structural engineering services to architect Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB) for the new Academic and Residential Complex at The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The fast-tracked project broke ground in January 2018 and its completion was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony led by UIC Chancellor Michael Amiridis and elected officials on July 18.

The project, designed by SCB, is a public private partnership between UIC and American Campus Communities (ACC), the largest owner, manager and developer of high-quality student housing communities in the U.S. It is the first public private partnership (P3) assignment for Thornton Tomasetti’s Chicago office.

As part of a master plan to address the university’s increasing enrollment, the new living-learning community features a 10-story, 146,000-square-foot residence hall with 548 beds in traditional dorm rooms and semi-suite-style units. A two-story, 54,000-square-foot academic center holds three large tiered lecture halls, active learning classrooms, several small group study rooms, a tutoring center and collaboration space. The living-learning community also includes shared spaces such as lounges, offices, laundry rooms, a fitness center and a 10th floor sky lounge, along with 1,600 square feet of retail space that will house a Starbucks to be operated by students. The building evokes the original campus design by architect Walter Netsch in its use of concrete panels and geometric shapes in the façade.

“Thornton Tomasetti’s expertise in working within tight timelines and budgetary constraints was key on this project,” said Thornton Tomasetti Vice President Todd Whisenhunt, S.E., P.E., who served as project manager. “We went from an April 2017 kick-off meeting to delivering construction designs and topping out the structure just over a year later, well ahead of schedule. From streamlined submittal reviews to structural quantities that remained unchanged throughout the process, the path to completion was a model of maximum efficiency and strategic collaboration.”

The residential tower’s structural system consists of concrete, two-way, post-tensioned flat slabs and reinforced concrete columns and shear walls, with staged stressed PT transfer beams. The classroom building features an oval floor plan with a steel braced-frame lateral system, long-span continuous plate girders with an 80-foot maximum span and a curved-steel feature stair spanning 45 feet. The structural systems of the two buildings are separated by an expansion joint. The complex is targeting LEED Gold certification.

“The project team spent a lot of time considering the needs of the university both from an academic and residential perspective,” said Joe Prochot, director of development management at ACC. “Though the overall design duration was compressed, this group of design professionals met the demanding expectations of the UIC/ACC partnership, contributing to successful construction efforts and project delivery.”

A project that moves at this pace requires timely design input from all members of the design team. To assist in this coordination, Thornton Tomasetti’s internal Issues Tracking log was used extensively during design to track essential cross-discipline items such as MEP openings, exterior wall considerations and column locations required to meet the early package deadlines.

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