By: Owen Britton

When will Northern Virginia Community College get student housing?

Most community colleges don’t offer dormitories to their students, who typically commute to school while living at home. However, some community colleges have been adding dorms to help attract students who want or need on-campus housing.

NOVA’s interested in hopping on that bandwagon. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

In the summer of 2009, NOVA hired the facilities planning firm Brailsford and Dunlavey to assess the costs and benefits of creating student housing. The firm proposed a $23.3 million project to provide 600 students with housing. In November 2010, Perkins Eastman Architects, a company that has designed facilities for a number of universities, were engaged to develop a more concrete plan, including the selection of a site for the project.

However, these plans are far from becoming a reality.

According to the Alexandria campus provost, Dr. Peter Maphumulo, “There is a plan to explore the possibility of having student housing at the Alexandria campus only.”

He added, “The construction of student housing would have to be financed through private dollars… We are just soliciting information from businesses that work in these sorts of partnerships with the universities.”

Once the project is financed, which may take quite some time, the budget may need to be reassessed, a specific plan for the building needs to be created, contractors need to be contracted and even then large construction projects take time.

So it will be a long time before NOVA students get to live on campus.

By: Owen Britton

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