May 21, 2009

Bastyr starts building $14M campus residential village

Image courtesy CollinsWoerman [enlarge]

The cottage layout is meant to foster interaction between students while maintaining privacy.

Bastyr University recently broke ground on 11 cottages that will house 132 students. This is the first major residential project for the university on its Kenmore campus.

The 11 cottages will form a residential village, located on about three acres of Bastyr's property adjacent to an existing ball field and northeast of the main building. The project will cost about $14.5 million and should be complete in summer of 2010. CollinsWoerman is architect. Schuchart Corp. is general contractor.

Bastyr specializes in natural medicine and health programs.

Each cottage is three stories with 12 living units that include a bedroom and bathroom. The living space is connected by a study room and laundry space to a common area, which includes a great room with a kitchen. Cottages are clustered in groups of three or four. The overall square footage is 50,300 square feet.

Pat Logan, project designer with CollinsWoerman, said the design is meant to foster interaction between students while maintaining privacy. “The idea is there's varying degrees of interaction so you feel like you have a bit of a neighborhood.”

George Cody, assistant to the president at Bastyr, said the living units are badly needed. He said 80 percent of the student body comes from out of state and many need a place to live. There isn't much rental housing nearby, so students often live far away and commute.

Last year's enrollment was 960 students.

Bastyr occupies the site of the former St. Thomas Seminary. It has 42 rooms for students that were previously used by seminarians. Cody said the units are “pretty Spartan” but always have a waiting list. The residential village, he said, will give students affordable housing on campus, cut down on commuting and provide “an expanded version of the Bastyr experience” by connecting students with nature.

The team used a number of green strategies and is seeking LEED for homes gold.

All the cottages will be naturally ventilated, which Logan said has reduced the need for a lot of duct work. All units are carpet-free to increase indoor air quality. They will also have Energy Star light fixtures, water-efficient features and lots of natural light. A hydronic heating system, radiant floors and high efficiency boilers will also be installed.

All water that falls on the site will be captured and sent into a biofiltration swale for treatment. Water will be held in a detention vault before it is released into nearby wetlands.

Logan says the cottage design breaks ground in that most student housing is either in the style of apartments or typical dorms.

“As far as I know there's not anything that I've really seen that is similar to this,” he said. “Our thought is it just has a closer connection to the land, closer connection to Bastyr's mission and purpose.”

Units will rent for about $675 a month. Bastyr has developed a new master plan that outlines its goals for the campus through 2020. Items in the plan include another housing complex of 130 units, ball field preservation, additional classroom and administrative space, and retrofitting projects. If approved by the Kenmore City Council, the work will be completed in 10 years.

Bastyr is also hoping its zoning will be switched from residential to a new zone of public semi-private. Cody said this would make development easier because it took the school a year to get conditional use permits for the new cottages.

Other project members include KPFF, structural and civil engineer; Site Workshop, landscape architect; Pressler Engineering, mechanical engineer; Blumen Consulting Group, entitlement consultant; Shannon & Wilson, geotech; and Tree Solutions, arborist.