Whitworth University says it plans to construct an $11.6 million residence hall on its North Side campus that will be ready for students to occupy by fall 2009.


The 44,000-square-foot, 168-bed structure, tentatively being called East Residence Hall, will have three floors above ground and a daylight basement, says Whitworth spokesman Greg Orwig. It will be constructed on the east side of Whitworths 200-acre campus, just northwest of Duvall Hall, the schools most recently completed dormitory, which opened in the fall of 2006 and houses 160 students, Orwig says. Whitworth expects to seek bids for the project next month and break ground in May, he says.


NAC/Architecture, of Spokane, is designing the project, which Orwig says will be funded largely through a bond issue.


The residence hall is needed, he says, because of our steady enrollment growth and our commitment to maintain the ability to house two-thirds of our undergraduate students on campus.


He says, We are currently at about 63 percent residency, and our plans call for 2 percent enrollment growth every year, so well be losing ground on that two-thirds goal until we can bring this residence hall on line. With it, we would expect to get up to two-thirds, based on a current undergraduate enrollment of 1,927 students.


Overall enrollment at the private, Presbyterian Church-affiliated school climbed to 2,607 last fall, up from 2,504 students a year earlier.


Whitworth will need to tear down two small dormitory buildings to clear the site for East Residence Hall, and will realize a net gain of about 130 beds once that project is completed, Orwig says. The small dorms that are to be razed were part of a village of six such buildings, but two of those buildings were demolished earlier to make room for construction of Duvall Hall, and the remaining two will be torn down to make room for the next new residence hall, he says. That building currently is projected to open in the fall of 2012 and would complete a triad of neighboring residence halls, he says.


Whitworth currently has one other major project under waya $7.1 million visual-arts building thats being constructed on the north side of campus and is expected to be completed in July. That 19,400-square-foot building will include an 1,100-square-foot gallery, faculty offices, studios, a computer graphics laboratory, and an atrium. Spokane-based T.W. Clark Construction LLC is the contractor for that project, and Madsen Mitchell Evenson & Conrad designed it.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.