Students at Northern Illinois University began moving into the New Residence Hall there on Thursday. While it may lack a fancy name, everything else about the facility is very fancy indeed – as it should be, given the $80 million it cost to build this state of the art complex.
The New Residence Hall is very unlike the university dorms of old, with the housing having been set up with semi-private restrooms which students who move in there only have to share with just one other person, clustered living arrangements, a commons with a study area for 12 students, and a living room with features such as a kitchenette, washer, dryer, flat-screen TV. Depending on your meal plan, the relocation to the Hall comes with a price tag of a minimum of $6,500 per semester for room and board.
New Residence Hall also comes with a wireless gaming area, outdoor basketball and sand volleyball court, fireside lounge, beanbag area and fitness center. It is Northern Illinois University’s very first new dorm for 44 years and is part of the university’s four-year plan to renovate campus housing in what is being called a “Residential Renaissance”.
The aim is for the university to become “the most student centered regional public university in the Midwest,” says the president of Northern Illinois University, John Peters. Despite the price tag, New Residence Hall has already filled its 1,008 bedrooms with no trouble at all.
Lance Grooms
