Ground-breaking for four-building, green housing complex Dec. 5

Janel Shoun | 11/27/2007

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Lipscomb University will mark the ground-breaking of its first student residence hall since 1983 at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, Dec. 5, on the university campus.

The ground-breaking ceremony will be held in the parking lot behind Elam Residence Hall. Access to this parking lot is available off of Belmont Boulevard.

The four-building complex, expected to open for use in fall 2008, will be unique on campus, featuring apartment-style suites and environmentally friendly construction standards. Lipscomb’s five other dorms were built much earlier in the university’s 117-year history.

“We wanted to provide an additional style of housing not currently available on campus. The suite layout featuring semi-private bathrooms and kitchenettes will be suitable for upper classmen who are now often moving off-campus when they turn 21, an option that can be very expensive in Green Hills or inconvenient to campus,” said Danny Taylor, senior vice president for finance and administration.

Full-time Lipscomb students are required to live on campus until they turn 21 unless they are living with their parents. “These buildings will allow our older students to have the convenience of on-campus living with the feel of off-campus apartments,” Taylor said.

The $8.2 million, 50,000-square-foot complex is the first four of eleven planned residential buildings included in Lipscomb’s master plan. It is one of a number of construction projects included in Lipscomb’s $54 million Lipscomb 2010 initiative to improve academic programs, spiritual activities and facilities.

As part of Lipscomb’s new focus on sustainable operations, the residence halls will be constructed with geothermal heating and cooling, low-emission paints and stains, low-flow toilets, showers and kitchen faucets, energy-efficient light fixtures and native landscaping, said Don Johnson, director of facilities and associate director of sustainable facilities management.

The residence halls will include four-bedroom and two-bedroom suites with a bathroom for every two beds. Students will be housed two per bed

66`.room and suites include kitchenettes. The halls will also have a physical fitness room, outdoor barbecue grills and general purpose rooms for meetings.

In fact, the lower levels of the three-story residence halls will be designed to house visiting professors or participants in long-term summer programs. Meeting rooms in the residence halls and the adjacent Bennett Campus Center can be used as a conference center to host overnight conferences and professional development programs, allowing year-round use of the residence hall facilities, Taylor said.