The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees will meet Friday to review plans for several building projects affecting the UA campus and to vote on the approval of more than $6 million in scholarships.
The board will vote to approve a preliminary search for contractors for the new $66 million North Bluff Residential Community, which the University hopes to complete by 2012. Current plans for North Bluff place it at the current site of Rose Towers.
The proposed seven-story building would house 984 residents and include classroom space, a game room, a community kitchen and a living room on the seventh floor, as well as a centrally-located laundry facility on the fifth floor. The plan also includes a new recreational facility and dining hall.
The University is also preparing to build a new two-story campus police center. The plans for the new facility are in their final stages. The center, which is budgeted to cost about $6.5 million, will be behind the University Law School on Jackson Avenue. The University plans to extend Jackson Avenue into a cul-de-sac and add a total of 92 parking spaces.
Another issue the board will discuss will be renovations of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house. According to the budget, renovations will cost about $3.75 million as a loan to the fraternity. The fraternity will pay the University back via rental income and miscellaneous charges to members.
The board will also vote on a proposed fourth phase of the Science and Engineering Complex, which will add five instructional laboratories, 48 research laboratories, and a 5,000-square-foot clean room at a cost of slightly more than $200,000.
Besides reviewing proposed building projects, the board will vote to accept over $6 million in scholarships. Betsy Ann Plan Rosenfield bestowed $3.5 million to the University, totaling more than half of the scholarships up for approval at Friday’s meeting.
In addition to the bequest of Betsy Plan Rosenfield, a new scholarship named after football coach Nick Saban and 2009 Heisman winner Mark Ingram will provide over $50,000 in athletic scholarships. The Nick Saban and Mark Ingram Endowed Athletic Scholarship in Intercollegiate Athletics at the University was granted by the UA President’s Cabinet.
The meetings will take place at Sellers Auditorium in the Bryant Conference Center beginning at 11:15 a.m.
