July 7, 2022 |
In 1967, the Wyoming Cowboy Football team won all 10 of their regular season games, had the nation’s best rushing defense and were invited to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
1967 was also the year the last student dorm was built on the Laramie campus. The 12-story White Hall was renovated in 2012 at a cost of $10 million.
The university is getting ready to break ground on its first new on-campus student housing plan in 55 years. The $250 million project won’t be completed until 2025. UW architect Matthew Newman told Laramie City Council last week site plan documents will be delivered to Town Hall in the coming days. Based on a master plan first developed in 2017 and updated last year, Newman said the new dorms are meant to enhance the quality of personal end academic life for students on campus.
Pictured above: University of Wyoming campus. File photo.
The multi-phase plan includes new residence living quarters to be built east of the Student Union between 15th and Lewis, two major streets around and through the campus.
The location also is close to many of the new science and engineering buildings on Lewis and adjacent to many of the on-campus pedestrian corridors, including Prexy’s Pasture.
The Wyoming Legislature made the student housing project a priority with House Bill 293 in 2019. Among other things, the bill authorized the replacement of 2,000 dormitory beds now on campus in the first phase. It also created a task force.
Newman told Laramie councilmembers that the task force concluded that improving student housing is critical to UW’s mission if wants to remain competitive with other four-year universities.
With House Bill 293, the legislature appropriated $15 million as a line of credit for phase one and two, and authorized a $34 million loan from LSRA to pay down other debts UW will submit construction papers in the coming weeks in preparation for groundbreaking this fall.
