The Best Western Rensselaer Inn located on Sixth Avenue in downtown Troy, just below the Approach, will soon begin its transformation into undergraduate housing over the weeks to come. The new residence hall is projected to be ready for full use by the Fall 2009 semester.
By transforming the hotel into housing for sophomores, juniors, and seniors, the Institute will increase campus housing by 11 percent. The target students to live in this dormitory are those students who would move off campus. The housing “will provide an increased opportunity for students to live in Rensselaer-provided housing,” said Vice President for Administration Claude Rounds.
The project was reviewed by the Troy Zoning Board of Appeals in December of last year and received a special use permit because the hotel is located in a business zone. The other residence halls are in an Institute zone. “The project has received strong support from the Troy community at large,” said Rounds. In addition to receiving the special use permit, the project also received approval of the site plan from the Planning Board.
The building will go under a complete renovation and modernization, including a replacement of the building structure and roof, new safety systems, and an exterior site development. All of the interior décor will be new including the furniture and fixtures.
The residence hall has a total square footage of 78,500—of which 9,600 is common space. The common space includes a kitchen, full dining hall, conference/study rooms, theatre, exercise room, and classrooms. Earlier releases of the project had specified that a dining room would not be part of the design and that a continental breakfast would be served. This is no longer true; students living in this dorm will have a full dining plan and will be allowed to eat anywhere on campus.
The building will house more than 290 students in about 150 rooms, both double and single. The exact configuration of the rooms is yet to be determined. Each room, including the adjoining private bathroom, will have between 248 and 296 square feet of space, similar to the other dorms on campus. Another addition to this residence hall will be air conditioning.
The hall will also have wired and wireless access to the campus networks, including the Internet, like the other dorms on campus.
The other residence halls on campus are at 96 percent capacity, meaning there is not enough room for all students to live on campus. However, the addition of the student housing will ratify this problem since this is an additional residence hall, not a replacement.
By leasing the building from the developer, it will stay on the property tax rolls, thereby benefiting the City of Troy, meaning there will be no negative revenue effects on Troy. Rounds explained, “The revenue from student housing will fully cover the operating cost [of the residence hall].”
Although the new hall will be further from campus, the RPI shuttle service is in the process of developing an expanded route that will transport students to and from the new location. In addition, the Department of Public Safety and the Troy police will patrol as they do on campus. The hall itself will have the same access control and fire alarm systems as other dorms on campus. Emergency telephone poles will be installed around the exterior of the site.
The location of the building allows the project to establish a smoother entrance to Troy from the campus. “The lease provides the opportunity to improve the exterior,” and the hope is to “improve the connection to the Approach,” stated Rounds. The actual exterior landscape design is still in the planning process.
The transformation of the building will begin in the weeks to follow the finalization of the exterior design. The end result will be of “quality second best only to Barton Hall,” said Rounds.
