Spring Break
Spartan Village to close at semester's end
May be turned into parking lot
Traci Newell
Daily Staff Writer
- Page 1 of 1
Diana Tran, the community relations coordinator for University Housing Services, said San Jose State University is not using the land for housing because the newly developed Campus Village, which opens in fall, will provide sufficient campus housing.
"If you add Spartan Village and Esplanade, there are 500 living spaces," Tran said. "Campus Village has 1,400 living spaces, almost triple the amount."
Campus Village, which began construction in 2003, is scheduled to open in the fall. The project consists of a building to house freshmen, apartments to house upper-division students and an apartment building for faculty members, staff and guests.
Tony Valenzuela, the associate vice president for Facilities Development and Operations at SJSU, said the university is currently looking at different stakeholders to see what the best use of the space will be.
He said that while they are still deciding on what to do with the space, the school may use the apartments as an overflow parking lot in the case of large events at Spartan Stadium.
"When there are big events, we will use it to keep cars off the grass," he said. "It will decompress the use of other fields."
Valenzuela said that some interested departments are athletics and Associated Students.
Another option the university is looking into is making Spartan Village an additional field for athletics or possibly making additional student parking.
Valenzuela added there isn't a large pressure to knock down Spartan Village right away, but he expects it to occur sometime in September. He said a final decision on what to do with the land will be reached at the end of the summer or early in the Fall semester.
He said the Facilities Development and Operations department is busy finishing up construction on Campus Village.
Tran said the university is using Spartan Village to provide free housing over the summer for current apartment students who will be moving into Campus Village in the fall. They are receiving this break because Campus Village will not be ready until the fall and they have to move out at the end of the Spring semester, causing them to have to move twice.
"We are trying to help them with moving expenses," Tran said.
Tran said that once the summer tenants are moved into Campus Village the Spartan Village land will no longer be used for Campus housing.
"The demands for apartment living will be met through Campus Village," she said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
markcarbon
markcarbon
posted 5/09/05 @ 5:30 PM PST
Knock 'em down - right away. Let's always remember that the land to build the Spartan Village was "appropriated" from athletics decades ago by the university. (Continued…)
Post a Comment