MOSCOW, Idaho — More housing options are coming to the University of Idaho campus.
Construction began Friday on a $162 million housing project that will bring more family and grad style apartments to the school’s south hill as well as update two undergraduate dorms. This helps to meet the university’s growing enrollment numbers.
“We are in our seventh consecutive semester of enrollment increasing,” said Jodi Walker, the executive director of communications for the University of Idaho. “Definitely bucking the national trend and I think it’s because we continue to be a great value.”
With that growth comes growing pains.
“These apartments were especially difficult to get into,” said senior Madison Aughenbaugh who currently lives in campus housing.
To accommodate for the increase in students, last year, the university had to rent space at a nearby motel for overflow housing. With this new housing project, it plans to have even more options for students.
“It has given us the opportunity to create some housing that really meets the needs and the expectations of current students,” Walker said.
Some of the current buildings on campus have not been remodeled since 1970 and some are even condemned.
Walker said updates to the family and grad student housing is part of the university’s work to be recognized as an R1 research institution.
“With that comes the need for graduate students and people doing those higher level degrees and research,” she said. “This is going to allow us to be able to attract those students.”
Both undergraduate dorms Theopolis Tower and the Wallace Residential Complex will also be remodeled.
“There’s strange things. Like you have to go through your neighbor’s part of the room to get to the bathroom. Communal showers that aren’t incredibly popular anymore. It’s being able to really upgrade those features,” Walker said.
Walker said the new housing will be available in phases. The apartments will be finished in August of 2026 and the undergraduate dorms are expected to wrap up the following year.
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