By Julia Ann Easley
Hundreds of freshmen will move into the newest residence hall at the University of California, Davis, this weekend as the campus welcomes thousands of new students.
The $49.8 million Yosemite Hall will become home to nearly 400 freshmen in the midst of what is the university’s most ambitious period of planning and construction for student housing.
In July 2018, the UC Board of Regents adopted a new housing plan to grow the number of on-campus beds available to students. Beds now number 10,500, and the Long Range Development Plan is to increase that number to at least 15,000 beds by fall 2023.
“At UC Davis, we have made increasing student housing a commitment and a priority,” said Emily Galindo, interim vice chancellor for Student Affairs. “Yosemite Hall is only the most recent realization of our accelerated efforts to achieve this.”
Features
In the Cuarto residential area, the new four-story building replaces Webster Hall, which opened in 1967 and housed about 260 students. Yosemite includes two- and three-bedroom suites — with two or three students in each bedroom — and a private bathroom for each suite. Each floor has two to four lounges with large windows from floor to ceiling.
Other features, all on the first floor, include a kitchen, laundry facilities, a 24-hour computer center, a service desk and a mailroom with lockers for receiving Amazon deliveries.
The building wraps around an interior courtyard, and residents will be able to park their bikes in stacked racks under cover of the building.
Yosemite was a design-build project of HKS Architects of San Francisco and DPR Construction of Sacramento with design bridging documents by Mogavero Architects of Sacramento. Construction, which began in June 2017, cost about $40 million, and total project costs are $49,815,000.
Reflecting the university’s commitment to sustainability, solar thermal panels on the roof help provide hot water to the building. Yosemite is expected to achieve gold certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Program of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Host of Living-Learning Community
This academic year, Yosemite will host one of 17 Living-Learning Communities that offer unique educational and social activities on themes ranging from the arts to first-generation college-goers. About 100 residents will participate in one focused on involvement in student organizations and developing leadership skills.
Other housing-related projects
Other projects related to student housing, with scheduled opening dates, are:
- Next month — The campus will open Latitude, a new dining facility in the Tercero residential area that will allow for future growth and greater flexibility to triple freshman beds as needed.
- Fall 2020 — Already under construction, The Green at West Village will add 1,000 beds in apartments for transfer and continuing students.
- Fall 2021 — The next phase of The Green at West Village will add 2,300 beds in apartments for transfer students and continuing undergraduates.
- Fall 2021 — Construction on Shasta Hall began this summer with the goal of opening a year early with 800 residence hall beds for new freshman students. Also in the Cuarto area, it will replace Emerson Hall.
- The campus is working on the planning, design and financing for the Orchard Park Redevelopment Project. It would provide about 1,100 beds for graduate students and about 200 two-bedroom apartments for students with families.
Housing and enrollment by the numbers
In all, about 6,100 students — including first-year and returning students as well as student staff — will complete the move into residence halls this weekend. About 4,400 other students live in other housing on campus.
UC Davis estimates it will enroll a total of 9,100 new freshmen and transfer students this fall. Total enrollment, including around 2,000 students studying outside of Davis, is expected to be about 39,400 in the fall quarter. Classes start Sept. 25.
