NEWS ANALYSIS: U. may encounter difficulty filling proposed dorms

Change would requireChange would require70% of undergrads toChange would require70% of undergrads tomove back on campus A draft report containing proposed changes to the University's campus layout reveals that the administration is considering new ways to revitalize the residential system and draw students back on campus. The proposals contained in the draft would, if implemented, have important effects on several areas of campus life. But before the administration decides to go ahead with new residential plans like those outlined in the draft, officials will have to consider how to fill the new facilities. The draft contains three residential models that include proposals to build a new dormitory at 34th and Chestnut streets with the capacity of the Quadrangle. In addition, the plan calls for a new bookstore at 36th and Walnut streets. It also suggests building a dining hall next to Grad Tower B and converting the residence to undergraduate housing. The new residences would add 3,000 beds for undergraduates and a new bookstore to a rectangular block of property between Walnut and Chestnut streets and 33rd and 37th streets. Moving so many students to such a small area would have a profound effect on several parts of campus, according to Wharton junior Ben Nelson, chairperson for the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education. Nelson explained that such a shift would make the Perelman Quadrangle -- composed of Houston, Logan, Williams and College halls -- more central to campus life. He also said moving such a large undergraduate population to the area would end the isolation many residents of King's Court/English House at 36th and Sansom streets feel. Moving students to this block could help improve safety for students by creating a densely populated area closer to the heart of campus. It could also reduce rents in off-campus areas west of 40th Street and possibly hurt businesses along the 40th Street corridor, an area the University has pledged to help develop. But in order for the University to fill the residences, there must be student interest in living on campus. According to figures contained in the report, a total of roughly 4,300 undergraduates live off campus now. The University would have to attract 70 percent of students living off-campus to move back into University residences to fill both new dorms. Even if the University moves forward with only one of the two new undergraduate residences, it would still have to move 1,500 students back on campus, or 35 percent of those living off campus. These numbers are probably unrealistic goals for the Residential Living Department to achieve. Therefore, another component to the proposals would convert part or all of the high rises and other residences in Superblock to graduate housing. But only eight percent of graduate and professional students currently live on campus, according to the figures in the draft. To fill the high rises, the University would have to get enough of the 11,400 professional and graduate students now living off campus to replace between 1,500 and 3,000 undergraduates who would move from the high rises to the new dorms. The authors of the draft also considered the possibility of requiring sophomores to live on campus, which would place roughly 650 more residents in residential dorms. But even with mandatory housing for sophomores, the University would still have to bring 25 percent of the remaining juniors and seniors back on campus to fill even one of the structures.