ASU touts dorms in effort to fill new ones

Four years ago, ASU got aggressive and launched a residence-hall building program with the goal of increasing the percentage of freshmen living on the Tempe campus.

The second phase of the $150 million Hassayampa Academic Village opened last week with room for about 1,000 students. That brings the village capacity to about 1,900 and university housing capacity to about 7,400.

In 2008, the Vista del Sol residence halls will open with 1,866 beds. After that, the Barrett Honors College will open its new facilities in 2009 in the southeast corner of the campus, with dorm space for 1,800.

"We have a great many residence-hall rooms coming soon," university housing chief Michael Coakley said. "It's just a question of getting ahead of a growing freshman class."

ASU resident adviser Adam Thomas, 23, said the new dorms will go a long way toward making happier students. He points to the spacious rooms, the study rooms, the large Learning Resource Center where students can go for tutoring and lounges with large television sets.

"The food in the cafeteria is excellent, like restaurant food; I mean really good," he said. "I lived in (another ASU dorm) my freshman year, and the food wasn't anywhere as good. Of course, the rooms the students live in there are much smaller, too. These rooms in Hassayampa are larger, more comfortable."

The University of Arizona also is building new dorms, with three planned in the next three years to increase the dorm capacity by about 1,060 beds.

While the UA has nearly 6,000 beds, about 660 students ended up on a waiting list, said Steve Gilmore, a Residence Life assistant director.

"Parents mostly want their new freshmen to be in residence halls, said Joel D. Valdez, the UA's senior vice president for business affairs. "We just don't have enough beds."

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