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Student input
driving force behind TWU’s new residence hall opening
in August
Lowry Woods Community nearly doubles TWU student
family housing capacity
8/16/05
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
DENTON –
The Lowry Woods Community, Texas Woman’s University’s
new state-of-the-art residence hall, fulfills student wishes
for apartment-style amenities and expands the housing space
available for students with families.
Lowry Woods will
house 314 students, including 61 students with children, nearly
doubling TWU’s family housing capacity. The $13.9 million
facility was built Carlton Construction and designed by Rees
Associates, Inc. of Dallas.
Construction on Lowry Woods began in August 2004 and the complex
opens in mid-August 2005.
“Our students
were instrumental in letting us know what they expected in
terms of housing amenities, and we wanted our new residence
hall to be on target with their expectations,” said
Dr. Richard Nicholas, TWU vice president for student life.
Lowry Woods offers apartment-style amenities to students,
including their own bedroom, separate vanity areas in shared
bathrooms, a complete kitchen with a garbage disposal and
dishwasher, thermostat control, free cable and Internet service,
and outside storage space. The complex consists of seven,
three-story buildings with furnished units for single students
and unfurnished units for student families.
“TWU was
very responsive to what students’ wanted in on-campus
living and tailor-made the apartments for the student experience,”
said TWU senior and Lowry Woods hall director Jessica Tharp.
“The student
advisory committee provided input on the bathroom design and
assisted us in picking out the furniture for the bedrooms
and shared living areas,” said TWU Director of Housing
Nancy Murphy-Chadwick. “Students provided input for
the apartments’ color scheme and helped select the lighting
and other fixtures to ensure a more residential and less institutional
feel to the units.”
Lowry Woods continues
TWU’s tradition of meeting the needs of students with
children. It replaces TWU’s current family housing unit,
Mary Hufford Hall.
“We have
always been leaders when it comes to meeting the needs of
our students with families,” Dr. Nicholas said. “We
were among the earliest universities to offer family housing
with a focus on programs and services for students who are
single parents. We have strived to be particularly attuned
to meeting their specific needs.”
Lowry Woods also
has a community center that houses a student lounge and a
computer lab. The community center provides a new home for
The Clubhouse, an after-school and summer recreation program
available for children in TWU’s family housing.
“The Clubhouse
provides reading, arts and crafts and science activities,
as well as other recreational and specialized programs that
can only be offered in a university setting,” Murphy-Chadwick
said. “The new community center offers a large play/learning
room for the program with a kitchen and observation room to
allow student interns and parents to observe Clubhouse activities
without disturbing the children.”
TWU junior and
residence hall association president Cydni Vandiver camped
out overnight in March 2005 in order to be the first in line
for placement at Lowry Woods.
Vandiver said that
the bathroom and bedroom closet size are her favorite aspects
of her apartment. “I am so excited to combine the independence
of living in an apartment with the convenience and security
of living on campus. I can’t wait to live there.”
“We offer
the advantages of on-campus living with the comforts of an
apartment,” Chadwick added. “We are different
than off-campus apartments because students can book their
rooms on a semester basis rather than a typical apartment
lease. When students pay their housing fee each semester,
that payment covers their room, all utilities, cable television
and Internet. They don’t have to worry about splitting
bills with their roommates or what will happen if someone
moves out.”
Lowry Woods also
satisfies the aesthetic standards of TWU's historic Denton
campus.
“We challenged
our designers from day one to build a first-class facility,”
Dr. Nicholas said. “We asked that they incorporate campus
colors and keep other building structures in mind so that
the complex fits within the overall TWU campus design.”
According to TWU
facilities project manager Donald Strickland, Lowry Woods
takes its cues from other historic campus buildings.
“Lowry Woods
incorporates the masonry color and style of many TWU buildings,”
Strickland said. “It also contains stone bases similar
to those seen at Old Main building and the Little Chapel-in-the-Woods.”
Strickland added
that plants and trees from all over campus were incorporated
to provide an environment that fit the character of all other
landscaped areas on campus and that the Denton/TWU jogging
trail was repositioned so the local community can still enjoy
the benefits of exercise in a natural environment.
“We also
used Dal-Tile imported from Mexico in the Community Center,
which enhanced the aesthetic quality of the facility,”
Strickland said.
Lowry Woods marks
TWU’s first newly constructed residence hall in more
than 35 years. According to “Marking a Trail, A History
of the Texas Woman’s University,” the last new
residence hall built on campus was Guinn Hall, a 24-story
high rise residence hall named after former TWU president
John Guinn that opened in 1969.
###
Sidebar
New Residence Hall Name Evokes History of TWU
Echoes of the past
are present in Texas Woman’s University's new apartment-style
housing opening in August on the Denton campus.
The complex will
be named the Lowry Woods Community, a reference to the name
of the wooded area north of the site, said Kenny Mauk, an
assistant director of university housing at TWU. The seven
buildings that make up the complex will carry the names of
previous residence halls on campus that have all been demolished,
except for Reagan Houston and Mary Hufford, scheduled to be
torn down this fall.
Names chosen for
the four single-student apartment buildings are:
• Reagan
Houston Hall — The residence hall currently bearing
this name will close this fall. The original hall was completed
in 1965 and was named after a longtime member of the university's
board of regents.
• Capps Hall — Built in 1918, this hall was named
for Sally B. Capps, secretary of the board of regents.
• Austin Hall — Named after Texas hero Stephen
F. Austin, the hall was constructed in 1936-37 on the site
of the original “dorm row,” located near the current
building site.
• Fitzgerald Hall — Hugh Nugent Fitzgerald was
president of the College of Industrial Arts (now TWU ) Board
of Regents. Fitzgerald Hall was built in 1931.
The apartment units
will accommodate two or three students, each of whom will
have a private bedroom but will share living, dining and kitchen
space. Rates for one bedroom in a two-bedroom apartment will
be $2,363 per semester. One bedroom in a three-bedroom apartment
will be $2,138 per semester.
Names selected
for the family housing apartment buildings are:
• Mary Hufford
Hall — The name of the current family housing unit will
carry over to the new site. Mary Hufford served as a member
of the English faculty from 1929-49 and as dean of women from
1949-59. The building will be demolished in fall 2005.
• Smith-Carroll Hall — Smith-Carroll originally
was the Methodist Dormitory for women and was the first residence
for students at the college. The university purchased the
residence hall in 1934.
• Sayers Hall — Completed in 1928, this hall was
named for Texas Gov. Joseph D. Sayers.
The rate for a
two-bedroom apartment in family housing will be $675 per month;
a three-bedroom apartment will be $860 per month all bills
paid.
###
For Further
Information Contact:
Amanda McKeen Simpson
Director of News and Information
Tel: (940) 898-3456
e-mail: asimpson1@twu.edu |
