WOODBURY UNIVERSITY : New Dorms to Finally Be Completed

Four three-story stucco and brick dormitories that have been under construction since last summer are soon to become home to 128 Woodbury University students.

Campus officials said the dorms, which are consistent with the Burbank school’s traditional Spanish architecture, are to be completed by April 30. Students will begin moving in a week later.

Los Angeles County sold $1.75 million in bonds to pay for the dorms. The university, part of which is in county territory, will repay bond purchasers with interest over a 30-year period.

University officials projected when construction began last summer that the project would be completed by Thanksgiving and that students would be able to move in soon after. But Jack Nelson, vice president of campus services, said the project ran into a variety of delays in getting necessary permits.

The four buildings are connected by balconies and walkways. Each floor houses 12 students with varying arrangements of four double rooms and four single rooms that are furnished with desks and beds. Students share a common living area and restroom on each floor.

Although students will be required to move into the dorms during the middle of the spring quarter, which ends June 15, Nelson stressed that the school would “make the move as easy and worry-free as possible for the students.”

Moving trucks and vans will be provided for students who were assigned to corporate apartments in Burbank while the dorms were being built.

Mary McGhee, housing director, said students began applying to live in the on-campus dormitories in March, 1989, and all rooms have been filled. Students living in the dorms will pay between $900 and $990 per quarter.

The new dorms, along with the old 56-room dorm, will allow about one-third of Woodbury’s traditional college-age students to live on campus. Woodbury’s enrollment is 850.

“We discovered that several students who would have applied to Woodbury didn’t because of lack of housing,” McGhee said. “Students are much more willing to stick around and do things on campus when they live in the dorms. We expect the student organizations to grow because more students will be here to participate.”

The university also plans to build additional dormitories in the future, college officials said.

“The dorms are in the shape of a half-circle,” she said. “When the money is available, similar dorms will be built to complete the circle and create a park-like atmosphere.”