After nearly two years of frequent, sometimes drastic revisions, the upperclass residential review is right on track and chugging full speed ahead. For the first time in months, administrators seem comfortable with their current plans and are busy refining, not revising, them.
"We're real close," said Judith White, director of the Residential Program Review.
If all goes according to schedule, crews should fence off the construction area for a new dorm this summer to begin preparing the site; officials hope to break ground in the fall. The construction will have removed 450 parking spaces-all of the Ocean and the spaces along Wannamaker Drive between the traffic circle and Towerview Drive-by the time students return from summer vacation.
White insisted that there are "workable" ways around this parking crunch and added that she is working with the University's parking consultant to find a solution. "We have to have something that we can announce after spring break, so that people have time to get used to the idea," she said.
She added that administrators and the consultant agree that these spaces can be "found" by reallocating and rezoning the current lots. There may be some additional surface lots built, but no one is anticipating constructing a parking garage in the next few years.
White's small office is lined with colorful architect's drawings for a new set of dormitories that will bring all sophomores onto West Campus and serve as the much-desired link with Edens Quadrangle, the current West Campus no-man's-land.
The current plans would create 380 bedspaces along with a café, student lounges, service centers and vast landscaped areas in what is now the Ocean parking lot. The number of beds will likely go back down to around 350 as cost constraints come into play.
At this point, White and the architects are simply tweaking the designs so the entire project-which includes major plumbing and electrical work and extensive renovations to existing Main West Campus dormitories-comes in below its $75 million budget.
"As we make certain other decisions [about building material or landscaping, for example], then some of these sites for beds become more or less efficient," she said. "What we have to figure out is where is the most efficient configuration of 350 beds."
White said she plans to release the architectural drawings after this month's Board of Trustees meeting.
The three dorms-divided into four houses of 70 to 100 students each-will be designed to mimic Duke's trademark gothic architecture.
"We're using the same gothic shapes, but it obviously has to be stylized," White said. "We're going to make sure it recalls the feeling of entering these quads."
In the spirit of the clocktower, there will even be a seven-story tower on the building nearest Edens. The tower will likely include a café with outdoor seating, a programming space and a catering kitchen.
White said that as much as she likes these quality-of-life boosters, they could still be sacrificed out of budgetary necessity. "If we get pressed, this goes out," she said. "The rooms don't get smaller."
The dorms will retain the gabled roofs of Main West, and will use at least some Duke stone-particularly at architectural focal points like entrances, archways and towers. All in all, White said she envisions the buildings as a blend of brick and Duke stone like the newly constructed Schwartz-Butters Building near Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Although the dorms will be several stories high, they will be tucked away in the natural drop-off behind Few Quad. This is important, White said, to ensure that the new construction will not infringe on the current views of or from Main West. "There's just a feeling that the quads look good right now," she said.
As far as the scheduled renovation of existing dorms, the plans still call for extensively overhauling the lower floors, replacing all wiring and consolidating student social and service space in the basements of residence halls.
But for the past few months, attention has focused on the new dorms. "We really just switched everyone over to working on the new piece," White said.
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