Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1956 [PAGE 941]

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938

BOAKD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES APPROVED

[February 21

The Secretary presented the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Trustees of December 20, 1955, press proof copies of which have previously been sent to the members of the Board. On motion of Mr. Livingston, these minutes were approved as printed on pages 885 to 912, inclusive.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON BUILDINGS A N D GROUNDS ON STUDENT-STAFF RESIDENCES

The Committee on Buildings and Grounds has given consideration to a proposal for the construction of sixty student-staff residences on an off-campus site on which bids were taken by the University and reported to the Committee on January 24, but no recommendation has yet been presented to the Board of Trustees on this project. It will be recalled that this project was to provide additional student-staff housing to replace family housing in some of the temporary buildings in Illini Village which were to be converted into dormitories for unmarried women students. This seemed at the time to be the only way of providing additional housing for unmarried women students by September, The call for bids on the acquisition of a site and the construction of student-staff residences included an invitation to bidders to submit alternate proposals for the construction of housing for unmarried undergraduate women students to be available for occupancy in September, 1956. North wood, Inc., of Champaign, submitted (along with the bid of the Dean Evans Company, Champaign, on the student-staff residences) a proposal to construct, and to finance this construction, seven apartment buildings on the north side of Gregory Drive in Champaign (across the street from the Parade Ground Units) which can be converted into small residence halls for unmarried women students, and to lease these buildings to the University. This proposal was accepted by the Board of Trustees on January 28, and it is now unnecessary to convert any of the temporary family housing in Illini Village into dormitories. The bids received on the student-staff residences indicate a cost which would require a rental of $83.50 per month for a two-bedroom house and $91 for a three-bedroom house, utilities to be paid for by the tenants, and it would also be necessary to supplement the net income from rentals with the net income from the temporary family housing to pay off the loan in ten years. Student and staff reactions indicate an unwillingness to pay such rents for housing located at a considerable distance from the campus. Most of the additions to the staff which will be required in September, 1956, will be in the lower salary brackets and it is doubtful that they would be in the market for such residences. The long-range housing program approved by the Board on January 28, 1956, contemplates the construction of 250 units of student-staff housing in 1957 • It has, therefore, been concluded by the University administrative officers concerned that the sixty residences project should not be under-