Ellington

Residents of Mercer Hall this year will be the last students to live within the brick residence hall. Mercer is slated for destruction in July, and construction of student apartments at the site will begin soon after.

The project, which is targeted for completion by August 2013, includes 930 beds in the west-campus location, up from Mercer’s capacity for 440 beds.

Mercer’s demolition and rebuild was confirmed in August of this year, replacing plans to renovate the facility that were proposed in June.

“In conjunction with the development that is occurring with Terry-Lander, a demolition of Mercer made the most sense,” said Jon Lebo, interim director for student life projects at Capital Projects Office.

Mercer, which was built in 1971, has consistently had a low percentage of returning residents compared to other residence halls, said Rob Lubin, associate director for Facilities and Capital Planning at HFS.

“Mercer has been our least attractive residence hall,” Lubin said. “When students sign up to come back and live in residence halls over the past about 15 to 20 years, Mercer gets a very low percentage of return … less than 5 percent, compared to the other halls [that] are more in the 30 percent range.”

A renovation of Mercer would cost about as much as a rebuild, which is estimated to cost $105 million, Lubin said. After examining the possibilities of a rebuild, the project team decided that the benefits of new housing on the Mercer site outweighed the benefits of a renovated Mercer.

“We could get more beds on the site [and] the kind of bed we wanted, which was the student-focused apartment, which is a sort of higher-quality, higher-privacy product,” Lubin said. “Everything is new, which means everything is up to current [building] code.”

After a rebuild, the proposed complex would house five apartment buildings targeted at upperclassmen and graduate students. The arrangement will predominantly feature four-bedroom, two-bathroom units, and will also have a mixture of studios and six-bedroom, six-bathroom apartments.

The rent rates for the planned apartments will be higher than the current rates for the residence hall, opening at about 23 percent higher than the rent rates for Stevens Court apartments, Lubin said.

This apartment-style living is designed to appeal to an age range not well-reached by the current residence halls, Lebo said.

“That’s one of the neat things about the program: the ability to address the demand of upperclassmen and grad students,” Lebo said. “[Currently,] there are few opportunities for upperclassmen and grad students in student housing.”

The design team will present an informational update on the Mercer, Terry-Lander and site 30 W (another planned residence hall) projects during the Nov. 18, Board of Regents meeting. Additionally, different designs of the Mercer project will be presented to the UW architectural commission Dec. 6, during which members of the commission will review and comment on the plans provided. The Board of Regents plan to vote on the budget and finance approval for the Mercer, Lander and site 30 W projects during its January meeting.

News Editor Joanna Nolasco contributed to this report. Reach reporter Erin Flemming at news@dailyuw.com.