Tribe Square Opens to 56 Residents

By Amber Lester Kennedy Wednesday, August 17, 2011

 

Kevin Kennedy will spend the school year at The College of William and Mary in brand new student housing, with a laundry room, restaurants downstairs and a one-minute commute across Richmond Road. But out of all the amenities, the senior is most excited about having a single room to himself, complete with a full-size bed.

Kennedy is one of the first residents to move into Tribe Square, the college’s first mixed-use student housing development. The 36,761-square-foot building received its certificate of occupancy on Aug. 5, and upperclassmen started moving in on Aug. 12.

“I lived with six people last year, so only sharing a bathroom with three other guys is much better,” Kennedy said during a tour of the building on Tuesday.

The three-story building will feature four retail businesses on the ground level. The Crust, a new restaurant from The Baker’s Crust, and Pita Pit will face Richmond Road. Subway Café and an unannounced business will be located in the rear, where 29 parking spaces will be available for customers.(Read more about the businesses here.) The building took the place of three college office buildings, which were demolished; it sits between WaWa and Williamsburg Baptist Church.

Above the restaurants are two floors with 14 apartments, adding 56 beds to campus housing. The residents include 49 seniors, six juniors and 1 sophomore. Each apartment features a common area with modular black sofas, a kitchenette with a dishwasher, two shared bathrooms and vanity area and four bedrooms. Inside the bedrooms, students have a lofted full-size bed and a selection of bookshelves and storage units that can be moved around like puzzle pieces to create customized storage solutions.

In Resident Assistant Chelsea Marotta’s room, her full bed was lofted about three feet off the floor, with a bookshelf and dresser below, concealing plastic bins pushed further to the back. Beside her bed, her desk did double duty as a nightstand.

As RA, she was excited about the building’s common room, where she can host hall meetings or activities. When she served as an RA last year, she struggled to find a common space to accommodate her entire hall. “This is a wonderful alternative,” she said. “It’s bigger than any other space I could find that could conveniently fit 56 people.”

The new housing is the first project approved under the city of Williamsburg’s Planned Development College (PDC) zoning district. The zoning was put into place in March 2010 to encourage mixed-use development including student housing close to the college. It fulfills several needs, adding more beds to campus housing while also encouraging students to live closer to campus, rather than in residential neighborhoods.

Director of Residence Life Deb Boykin said the 14 apartments were the first choice for most students in the housing lottery last spring. All filled during the first four hours of the eight-day lottery process, the equivalent of a concert selling out in minutes. The school’s next student housing project will add 187 beds in fraternity housing, to be located along Ukrop Way. The $26 million project will include 11 houses and one multipurpose building for fraternities and sororities. The project is expected to open in the fall of 2013.