September 7, 2016

UW spending $380M to build new dorms on North Campus

Images from UW/ KieranTimberlake [enlarge]

Willow Hall will have 523 beds and a new dining area for the entire North Campus.

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A town square will be a gathering place for the new buildings.

A major reconfiguration of the University of Washington's North Campus got underway earlier this year with the demolition of McCarty Hall.

The demise of McCarty is creating space for W.G. Clark Construction to build three dorms as part of a two-phase redevelopment of North Campus that will create about 2,800 beds in five buildings at a total cost of $380 million.

Clark is the GC/CM for both phases under two contracts. It won the second contract last month. The construction value for the first phase is $163.5 million; the second phase is $92 million.

Jeff Williams of W.G. Clark said bids are due Thursday for a $9 million subcontract for rough carpentry. Dozens of other subcontracts will be available in December and January.

Jon Lebo, a director in the Major Capital Projects office at the UW, said the first phase is adding 1,773 beds and the second is in pre-design with a target of 1,086 beds.

Lebo said the transformation of the North Campus will be nearly as large as the $470 million West Campus expansion in 2010-15, which added 4,330 beds but took out about 1,600 when Mercer, Lander and Terry halls were demolished. Combined with other student housing, West Campus has more than 5,000 beds.

Before McCarty Hall was demolished, North Campus had about 2,900 beds. The new configuration will bump the total to between 3,700 and 4,200, depending on whether McMahon Hall is renovated for single or double-bed rooms in a future phase.

Lebo said more than two-thirds of the new North Campus housing will be double rooms with private baths. There also will be studios; doubles with communal baths; and singles, triples and quads with private baths. More than 90 percent of the rooms will have private baths.

The new buildings will have lounges, small group study spaces, group kitchens and dining areas, music practice rooms, and laundry and storage spaces.

Lebo said the university hopes to get building permits in February, March and April next year for the three buildings in phase one, which are named Madrona, Willow and the replacement McCarty Hall.

The second phase will build Oak Hall and a replacement for the 730-bed Haggett Hall, which will be demolished in the summer of 2018.

The UW is waiting for a permit from the city for concrete foundation work for Willow Hall. Lebo said they hope to get that permit this month and foundation permits for the other two buildings in mid-October.

The first tower crane went up last month and a second will be erected this fall.

The three buildings in the first phase will have western red cedar siding with rainscreens behind and brick bases below. Lebo said the wood siding will be a visual cue to the former forested area of nearby Kincaid Ravine. A new vegetation canopy for the area is designed to attract a variety of birds and mammals.

Willow Hall will have a rooftop terrace above a dining area that will serve all the North Campus dorms. The dining area will have five or six themed food kiosks and a Pagliacci pizza restaurant similar to ones in Lander Hall and the Husky Union Building.

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Five dorms will be built between McMahon and Hansee halls.

The ground level of Madrona Hall will have a learning resource center for casual study that includes spaces for tutoring and student projects.

The learning center will be adjacent to a town square in the center of the five new buildings. New pathways will connect the cluster to the main campus.

Lebo said there will be maker space in the new McCarty that the College of Engineering will collaborate on. He said there will be a fume hood for biology work and activities in the space will be low-keyed.

Plans show a fitness center in McCarty, an interior garden in Willow and an ice cream parlor in Madrona.

A game room and cafe market, similar to District Market in West Campus, will be inside Oak Hall.

The second phase will reconfigure Denny Field into a turf field with lights for recreational sports. That work will take out eight existing tennis courts and a sand volleyball court, and relocate a basketball court.

Lebo said the first phase buildings should be ready by autumn quarter 2018. Oak Hall and Denny Field in the second phase should be finished in August 2019 and the new Haggett Hall in July 2020.

All new buildings will be five levels of wood-frame over two concrete floors. Lebo said they aren't doing concrete towers — like the existing Haggett and McMahon halls — because students would end up paying more and having fewer amenities.

KieranTimberlake is the architect and Olin is the landscape architect. Both firms are based in Philadelphia. Olin was founded by Laurie Olin, a University of Washington architecture graduate. Permit Consultants NW is also on the team.

Holaday-Parks is the mechanical contractor/construction manager for HVAC and plumbing, and Cochran Electric is the electrical contractor/construction manager.

Once work is done on the five buildings, the UW plans to renovate the nearby 11-story McMahon Hall. That cost could reach $40 million. Lebo said they looked at turning the building into offices and administrative space, but decided to keep it as a dorm. Now the school is studying whether to eliminate some of the dorm's 1,048 beds to create a better layout.

Lebo said work could start in summer 2020 on McMahon. He said they might renovate half of the building at a time, or just do the work over several summers. A consultant could be hired in 2018 for that project.

Over the last 37 years, W.G Clark has built 16 projects for the UW, including several West Campus dorms. Williams said it's quite likely that his firm will go after the McMahon renovation.