The UW Board of Regents has approved a long-awaited remodel of the aging HUB, an expansion of the Ethnic Cultural Center (ECC) and a renovation of the Hall Health Primary Care Center.

Totaling about $154 million, the three projects will be paid for mostly by UW students through a new quarterly student fee, also approved by regents last week, which will be added to students’ tuition starting in fall 2011.

That’s when full-time students will begin paying an additional $17 dollars in fees — $11 for the ECC and $6 for Hall Health — as both buildings near completion. A year later, the fees will jump to $90 per quarter as the $128 million HUB remodel nears completion.

The UW anticipates raising $20 million in private contributions.

Despite the hike in costs, a number of student organizations, groups and committees — including ASUW and GPSS — are endorsing the three projects.

“These are student buildings,” said Matt York, a UW senior and former chair of the Services and Activities Fee Committee, which approved a new student fee of up to $95 per quarter for the projects last May. “If you look across the country, students pay for their student union buildings and other buildings like the ECC. Historically they’ve been funded by students.”

Before deciding to instate the surcharge, UW officials surveyed the student fee structures at about 30 other institutions, said Eric Godfrey, UW vice president and vice provost for Student Life.

The average student fees at those schools total about $1,150 per year. At Washington State University, students pay $1,350 on top of tuition, Godfrey said. UW students currently pay $440. In 2012, they will pay about $790.

“As nearly as I can tell, there is broad, enthusiastic support for moving ahead and using the student fee to finance the projects,” Godfrey said.

The HUB, built in 1949, has mechanical and electrical systems that have worn down with age. To most observers, the building, which is thought of as a campus meeting point, is poorly lighted and difficult to navigate.

And the more than 700 student groups that use the HUB say there isn’t enough room inside for their activities and gatherings, Godfrey said.

Camilo Moreno-Salamanca, who served on a HUB renovation committee last year as a freshman, said his group was focused on finding a long-term solution for a more space-accessible, environmentally friendly building that would also change the interaction between the student body and student organizations.

“We just wanted to start a new wave, a new era [for] the university,” he said.

Campus leaders hope a newly renovated, bigger HUB, complete with a three-story atrium to run the length of the building, will help usher in that new era.

“We’re building a building that’s going to better serve the ... campus community,” said Paul Zuchowski, associate director of student activities and union facilities.

The ECC, considered by many a national model for multicultural student centers, was originally built in 1970. The $15.5 million project will begin with the demolition of the current single-story building, located on Northeast 40th Street and Brooklyn Avenue Northeast. The construction will expand the building, giving it two more floors that will make the new building nearly two-and-a-half times the square footage of the original ECC.

The Hall Health renovation, which will cost $10.15 million, focuses on the ground and first floors, a portion of the third floor and construction of an addition of approximately 2,600 square feet on two floors. The clinic will remain open during the project.

Reach reporter Maks Goldenshteyn at news@dailyuw.com.