The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry is developing plans for its first ESF-only residence hall.

The approximately 400-student building is expected to be completed in two years, said Eileen Simmons, director of housing at SU. The residence hall is set to house ESF freshmen, transfer students and graduate students on Oakland Avenue, behind Syracuse University’s Lawrinson Hall.

Because it is still in the early planning stages, the cost, amenities and start date have not yet been determined, said Brenda Greenfield, the executive director of the ESF College Foundation, the group paying for the project. The consultants on this project are Allen and O’Hara, the same consulting firm working on the University Village apartments on East Colvin Street.

The ESF College Foundation is a private, charitable organization that works in conjunction with the school. The organization purchased the land on Oakland Avenue, where the new residence hall will replace the current housing.

The foundation sent surveys to the ESF student body to see what types of rooms they would like to see in the new residence hall, including private and shared two-person rooms, as well as four-person apartments. Each comes with specific bathroom and kitchen options. The designs for the building will be based on the building space available and the responses to the surveys, Greenfield said.

She said that the foundation began looking into a student residence hall to help ESF accommodate future enrollment. Admission applications have increased 20 percent this year, on top of a previous 20 percent increase from the year before, Greenfield said.

‘Intense international and national interest in environmental issues coupled with ESF’s reasonable tuition and excellent academic reputation indicate a strong potential for enrollment growth,’ she said.

ESF students indicated in the surveys that they would prefer to have an ESF-only residence with a convenient location to their campus, since next year all ESF freshmen will occupy SkyHalls with SU transfer students. ESF students are required to join learning communities as residents of SkyHalls. But the ESF students will be moved to the new residence hall when it is completed.

Greenfield said the new residence hall would have a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified rating of silver. LEED is a rating system that measures how environmentally friendly a building is. The school also plans to maximize energy saving and the use of sustainable materials in the new building, she said, but because the residence hall is a private project, the school can only suggest sustainable practices.

‘Our intent is to make the residence hall as sustainable as possible,’ said Brian Boothroyd, the assistant director of the physical plant for facilities. ‘Since this is a private development, we don’t have as much control.’

Another environmentally friendly project ESF introduced this year is its Gateway Building, which will serve as the ‘literal and figurative gateway’ to the ESF campus, Boothroyd said.

‘We are hoping that it will become an iconic building that expresses our identity,’ she said.

It will have administrative offices, conference rooms, a café, and an exhibition space for students’ work and for the Theodore Roosevelt stuffed wildlife collection. The building will also serve as the starting point for prospective student tours. It will be built at the current location of ESF’s Moon Library parking lot, and the circle parking lot will be expanded to make up for the loss of parking, Boothroyd said.

The Gateway Building will not only showcase student work, but it will also use new energy conservation methods, which it will open to the public. One method of energy developers plan to use is power and heat energy powered by the steam produced by burning wood chips.

The 40,000-square-foot building is intended to be built at the platinum level of the LEED certification and will have zero net energy, Boothroyd said. Zero net energy means that the building will create all of the energy it consumes. It will also be carbon neutral.

The $22 million building is being funded by the New York State Construction Fund. Because of the project’s dedication to energy conservation, ESF might be eligible for grants, he added.

The project is still in the developmental stages, so a start and completion date has not been determined. Boothroyd said that he hopes to open the Gateway Building in 2012.

‘ESF and the ESF College Foundation have a strong commitment to sustainable construction and the environment,’ he said.

krkoerti@syr.edu

Published on April 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm