Southwestern Michigan College is expanding its student housing.
The SMC board of Trustees this week voted to construct new rooms to accommodate a total of 36 additional beds. SMC President Joe Odenwald tells us the college has seen more demand for housing since the pandemic ended and athletics were brought back to campus.
“At the beginning of September, we were at 104% of housing, and so the board said to me that if we get into a situation, we’re going to have to look at some incremental options,” Odenwald said. “So, we’ve looked at that and we’ve looked at both large projects and small ones.”
They opted to go with a modest project, adding new rooms to existing residence halls.
Odenwald says the residence halls will house 367 students this semester, or 94% of capacity, compared to 345, or 88%, last spring. He believes the worst of the pandemic is behind the college, leading to the demand.
“We’re back, seeing the kind of numbers we saw a decade ago in terms of demand on housing. Intercollegiate athletics is a part of that, but that’s only a fourth of the people living there.”
Odenwald says the residence halls were not only completely full in Fall 2023, but also had a long waiting list and some students were not able to secure a room.
Odenwald expects the project to add new rooms to cost between $2 million and $3 million.
