As of next semester, Syracuse University will no longer be housing students in the Parkview Hotel and Sheraton University Hotel and Conference Center.

Students who still had to fulfill their two-year housing requirement were housed there this year as a solution to the problem of minimal housing. Sara Miller, associate director of news services, said in an email that next year, with the opening of a new area for law students and other new, private development opportunities, there will not be a need for the overflow of housing.

However, though housing students in hotels is somewhat unconventional, many students found they enjoyed living in them.

Joshua Podrid, a sophomore television, radio and film major, said he found the Sheraton to be an ideal location, as it is in close proximity to many major buildings on campus, like the Schine Student Center.

‘It doesn’t really feel like a college environment here,’ Podrid said. ‘You get back from class and you’re all of a sudden on a vacation.’

Though there are positive aspects to the change from traditional dorm life, Podrid said there were negatives as well. He said his floor at the Sheraton lacked a sense of community.

Eric McLee, a sophomore biomedical engineering major, agreed with Podrid, saying that he felt the living accommodations were far superior to those of dorms but that it was not comparable to the dorm experience.

‘One thing that’s lacking here is that you don’t have the dorm room environment, where you’re really friendly with all your neighbors and see people a lot, which I miss from freshman year,’ McLee said.

David Heymann, general manager of the Sheraton, said having students housed at the Sheraton has been a success thus far. He said they did not experience operational problems or receive complaints from guests.

Heymann said he felt it was successful because students were isolated from the rest of the hotel guests. They occupied their own floor at the hotel with a total of 34 rooms.

‘If other guests had to intermingle with students then maybe we would have had complaints, but I think the students were pretty well behaved,’ he said.

Heymann said if the opportunity presented itself, he would be willing to have this same arrangement with SU again.

Miller, the associate director of news services, said she felt the solution to the overflow problem had been a success, but they had hoped that rooms at the Parkview Hotel would be more popular among drama students due to its proximity to Syracuse Stage.

Podrid said he personally would recommend living at the Sheraton to other students and felt the experience had been a positive one.

‘If I came to a hotel and saw kids living there, I’d think it was the luckiest situation ever,’ he said.

When the housing lottery begins in a few weeks, students will no longer have the Sheraton and Parkview hotels as options for fulfilling their two-year on-campus housing requirement. But this will not be the only change to SU’s housing next year.

Booth Hall will only house returning students. Additionally, renovations in both Lawrinson and Sadler halls will conclude this summer, according to the Housing Lottery Overview, accessible via the 2012-13 Housing Lottery page on the Office of Housing, Meal Plan and I.D. Card Services website.

Lawrinson will have renovations in the lobby, second floor, 20th floor laundry room and the Penthouse. Four-person suites in Sadler will be converted into open doubles.

cffabris@syr.edu

Published on January 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Casey: cffabris@syr.edu | @caseyfabris