Duke administrators have begun to discuss the construction of a fourth wing of Keohane Quadrangle, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said Thursday.
Several top administrators will present a proposal to the Board of Trustees Saturday, asking for $75,000 to study the feasibility of a 150-bed addition to the quad, said Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost of undergraduate education. The new building, code-named K4, would run across the back side of the quad near Edens Quadrangle, turning the horseshoe-shaped set of buildings into a square.
“I’m hoping that by adding residence space we can improve the residence model quicker and that we can piggy-back some of this into creating social dining spaces that really bring out the potential of McClendon [Tower], which has never been realized,” Nowicki said.
He added that the new dormitory, first conceptualized in Duke’s Action Plan 2000, will help link Edens with the rest of West Campus. The project would also be an early piece of the New Campus plan, a long-term $500 million effort to revitalize Central Campus and link it with West, Nowicki said.
Trask noted that discussions about the project are in a very early phase, but that the new building will have social space in addition to dorm rooms. If the trustees approve the proposal for a feasibility study Saturday, Nowicki will then present the plan to Campus Council next Thursday, he said.
Nowicki said the new dorm might be coupled with improvements to the dining area on the second floor of McClendon Tower, the current location of Tommy’s Rubs and Grubs. He said he would like the area between McClendon and the new dorm to serve the same purpose as the archway between Bostock and Perkins Libraries—an inviting transition between two areas of campus.
“If we work this out right, it also gives us a chance to bring out the potential of the McClendon Tower area as a real connector to bring Edens into the rest of the campus,” Nowicki said.
He added that there is currently no timeline for the project and its total cost is unknown.
“We have to flesh out the architectural reality of it in a rough form to understand what the real costs are,” Nowicki said.
Duke would likely borrow money to construct the dorm and repay it over time using housing revenue, Nowicki said. If the project is paid for in this way, Duke’s moratorium on new construction projects will not apply. The construction moratorium only applies to building projects that require new money to be generated from sources such as the endowment or charitable giving.
The three current buildings of Keohane Quad, originally called the West-Edens Link, were completed in 2002 at a cost of $38 million. Those buildings added about 330 beds to West Campus.
Lindsey Rupp contributed reporting.
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