CMU can look forward to the possibility of a new residence hall for the fall of 2015 with an additional building next to Garfield Hall. It will be built in response to a student housing survey that recently went around campus.

The next step in the process will be to take the plans before the Board of Trustees and establish a “critical step timeline,” President Tim Foster said.

“We’ll go through it with the trustees next Wednesday when we meet, and assuming we get the green light, we’ll start designing,” Foster said.

With the ever-increasing size of the university, 500 new beds are needed on campus, and the new hall will fill “200 plus” of those spots, according to Foster. The shorter amount stems from conservative planning.

“If you say you’re really interested, maybe half of those actually come, then maybe a third actually sign up for a room,” Foster said, explaining that if a hall has too many spaces, people are forced to live on campus, and “that’s not the relationship you want to have” with students.

The survey was a basis point for determining these numbers, asking over 700 respondents about what they desired in a residence hall, location, type of unit and price of housing.

“We got a very good response,” Foster said. “It was a very high response rate. That was one of the real positives.”

With the help student input from the survey provided, Foster also hopes to continue to “reach out to students and try to get students involved” in the design and planning of the new residence hall as it moves forward.

kirick@mavs.coloradomesa.edu