UNM is moving forward with its American Campus Communities partnership.
At the Dec. 3 meeting, the Lobo Development Board approved the “Strategic Housing Plan”.
Kim Murphy, Real Estate director, said the plan is a document that provides ACC and UNM direction to enhance student housing.
“The strategic housing plan is a business document. It is not a physical plan. It is not a design,” he said. “Nothing is final until the ground lease is agreed upon and is executed by the regents of New Mexico.”
The document outlines the timing and construction locations for the four-phase project, the first of which breaks ground this summer and will add 980 beds to main campus.
The plan proposes shifting the typical UNM double-bedroom unit from 71 square feet per person to 178 square feet and replacing community bathrooms with subdivided restrooms shared by four residents.
Regent Don Chalmers said having a thorough plan for the project is necessary before UNM picks up a shovel.
“Our structures are sound, but they are old and tired,” he said. “When you compare them to peer institutions, they are not as modern. I have been pushing hard to get a strategic housing plan because for us to start building things without a strategic plan is getting the cart in front of the horse.”
Murphy said UNM is in the preliminary stage of a three-step process: development proposal and selection, then project design and detailed budget and schedule, and finally signing the ground lease between ACC and UNM.
“These three steps are really a progressive approval process for each individual phase of student housing,” he said.
Acting President Paul Roth said he wanted to address main campus students’ concerns about lack of communication, the timing of the demolition and the potentially segregated community.
“A lot of the concern and anxiety that the students felt leading up to the last regents meeting was unnecessary,” he said. “Had there been really frequent, regular, really clear communication and information sharing, we would have had less prescriptions for Pepcid.”
Matt Stein, ACC on-campus director, said the plan calls for the demolition of three existing halls — two portions of SRCs and Santa Ana. He said the plan discusses ACC improving student housing to prevent a hierarchical environment.
“None of those halls are anticipated to have any type of ACC demolition services during the academic year,” he said. “Everything has been planned for the summer, once students have vacated after the spring semester.”
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“We have a tremendous drop off from freshman to sophomore and then further on through junior and senior,” he said.
Chalmers said universities typically experience the sophomore year drop off, and it will be difficult for UNM to change that.
“Everybody falls off; it’s not just us. In fact, because we start at a lower level, we really don’t fall off as much as other people,” he said. “Colorado State goes from 96 percent to 8 percent. … We are only at 32 percent and 5 percent stay on campus.”
Stein said the “Strategic Housing Plan” is a work in progress, and the UNM community will be notified of all changes.
“The inherent nature of planning documents is that they can change,” he said. “This isn’t saying that the community center and the dining hall are going on the Coronado site. This is an opportunity and an option for a future phase of development that we know needs to happen.”
