The Kittredge community, located on the southeast corner of campus, is growing. The construction that has been underway in Kittredge for over a year and a half will add two residence halls to the community, Kittredge Central and Kittredge West. Kittredge currently houses approximately 940 students, but the expansion projects will allow the community to grow.
The construction of Kittredge West and Central residence halls is expected to be completed over the summer. (Ryan Tibbitts/CU Independent)
Marcie Tucker, the Assistant Director Housing and Dining Services at CU, said the construction has been a 15-month-long process so far.
“[Construction] started last winter.” Tucker said. “We’re renovating Kittredge West and building Kittredge Central.”
Back in February of 2011, the CU regents supported a $22.8 million remodeling plan for the Kittredge West building. The construction process has been long, but it is expected to pay off. The two new dorms will be ready for use in Fall 2013 and both will add new facilities and resources for CU students.
Tucker said that Kittredge West was renovated so it could house the Health Professions residential academic program (RAP) that is currently located in Cheyenne Arapaho Hall.
Kittredge Central will house the Global Engineering RAP, which will be open to all engineering students, and the Leadership RAP, which is currently located in Williams Village. Kittredge Central will offer other amenities, as well.
“Our tutoring program, which is available for all students, will be located in Kittredge Central. We built new classrooms in the dorm,” Tucker said.
According to the Housing and Dining Services website, which provides updates on housing facilities projects, Kittredge Central will also house a 200-person meeting and conference area, a student game room, a retail area, a large community great room, study lounges in every wing, a large kitchen and an “in-house” faculty apartment.
Putri Martosudarmo, a 20-year-old sophomore anthropology major, is going to be a peer mentor in Buckingham Hall next year.
“It will be awesome because the Kittredge village will have a new buildings. It will be nice to have more people in Kitt and we’re really going to like the buildings,” Martosudarmo said.
Rudi Jie-A-Fa, a 19-year-old freshman English major, is going to be a peer mentor in Buckingham Hall next year as well. She is excited for the two new buildings.
“The new buildings are going to be more luxurious than the ones we have now,” Jie-A-Fa said. “Kitt is definitely going to have a lot more people. It was quiet before, but now it’ll be more populated. I always like to welcome new people into Kitt because not a lot of people know about it. It’ll be good.”
Students who moved into Kittredge this year were told about the construction prior to move-in day and those in charge of the construction are making an active effort to disturb as few students as possible.
“There always is an impact to students, but we tried to let them know that they can contact me,” Tucker said. “[Students] have done a really outstanding job of going with the flow and hopefully they will take advantage of those new buildings next year.”
For more information on the construction project and photos of what the new buildings will look like, click here.
Contact CU Independent Assistant Breaking News Editor Alyx Saupe at Alyx.saupe@colorado.edu.