Construction on a 370-bed Lehigh University dorm is scheduled to start in Sayre Park in the fall, and the school aims to welcome undergraduates to the residence by fall 2028.<\/p>\n
First- and second-year students will be the primary residents of the new dorm. The construction project is part of the university\u2019s efforts to accommodate planned growth in its undergraduate student population.<\/p>\n
The new residence hall is part of the university\u2019s efforts to provide \u201cgood, safe, communal places to live close to the heart of campus,\u201d said Nancy Trainer, Lehigh\u2019s associate vice president for facilities and campus planning.<\/p>\n
The building is designed to \u201cstep into the grade\u201d of its hilly site. Although it will visually appear to be four pods, the residence will be one building that features outdoor and indoor common spaces.<\/p>\n
Students consulted as part of the design process expressed a preference for semi-private and communal space, said Chris Cook, Lehigh\u2019s vice president for finance and administration.<\/p>\n
Consequently, the design minimizes the size of bedroom space in order to maximize the size of common spaces, said Joe Klocek, university director of planning, design and construction, adding that bedroom size will remain comparable to other campus dorms.<\/p>\n
The new residence hall will be the university\u2019s first all-electric building, in line with the school\u2019s sustainability goals, and will feature a green roof. The design will also allow for the reuse of rainwater for on-site irrigation of the landscaping.<\/p>\n
The university will put back more trees than construction will remove, Klocek said, adding that landscaping will focus on native plants specific to South Mountain.<\/p>\n
The shady site isn\u2019t an ideal situation for solar power, so no panels are planned, Trainer said.<\/p>\n
Lehigh University officials said they could not share the project\u2019s final budget, as they are \u201cstill developing details.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Construction on a 370-bed Lehigh University dorm is scheduled to start in Sayre Park in the fall, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,153,1391,227,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":["post-158491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-area","tag-education","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}