The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) named the 861-bed Chestnut Square student housing community the 2015 Best Mixed-Use Community and the 2015 Best Student Housing Rental Apartment Community as part of its Pillars of the Industry Awards. The 1,315-bed Summit at University City project was also acknowledged with the Philadelphia Business Journal’s 2015 Heavy Hitters of Real Estate Award, while the University Crossings project was recognized with the 2015 Student Housing Business Innovator Award – Most Creative Public-Private Partnership, On-campus.

New York-based Robert A.M. Stern Architects designed the 361,200-square-foot, mixed-use Chestnut Square student housing and retail development. The $97.6 million project was completed in September 2013. “Chestnut Square helped transform our campus and our neighborhood, and it richly deserves these accolades,” said John A. Fry, Drexel’s president, in a statement. “American Campus Communities develops and runs great buildings, including three at Drexel, and our partnership with American Campus has allowed us to focus on academic priorities and leave infrastructure investments and challenges to the experts.”

The Summit development, which opened earlier this fall, is the latest of the ACC projects. The $170 million, 1,315-bed Summit marks a significant development in the school’s 2012 Campus Master Plan with the transformation of the Lancaster Avenue corridor. It helps bring positive development to its surrounding neighborhoods and West Philadelphia as a whole, and the community has been involved throughout the process. Philadelphia Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell’s office, the neighboring Community Education Center, the Lancaster Avenue Business Association and the Powelton Village Civic Association all provided input for the project, according to Drexel Now.

“Sometimes it is hard to accommodate big changes in the area, but the community has been candid and forward-thinking in our interactions,” Testa told Drexel Now. “It’s exciting to see just how good, collaborative planning results in vibrant, energetic, University City activity.”

While not a new-build project, University Crossings underwent a $13 million exterior renovation that was completed in late 2014. The student housing facility opened in 2002 in the Pennsylvania Railroad Office Building, an 87-year-old structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The project included exterior cleaning, repointing bricks and water infiltration repairs.

The Drexel University-American Campus partnership includes all three projects that expand the university housing capacity by approximately 3,200 beds. All projects were funded by American Campus Communities as a part of their American Campus Equity (ACE) program, which provides universities with the option to develop or sell student housing while preserving their debt capacity to fund core infrastructure.

“Our partnership with Drexel University has yielded three award-winning student housing communities,” said Bill Bayless, president and CEO of ACC, in a statement. “That success is a testament to President Fry’s unparalleled vision for student housing at the university and our shared, unrelenting commitment to student success.”

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The project is being funded by a $250 million gift from Charles B. Johnson, who gradated from Yale College in 1954, as well as other donations and fundraising efforts. It has already required $7.6 million in permit fees to the city of New Haven, according to the Yale Daily News. The fact that at least 125 New Haven residents will be part of the construction process will also help boost the local economy.

Federal law requires that all construction projects receiving federal funding ensure that 25 percent of work hours are performed by minority construction workers and 6.9 percent are performed by women. The city also requires that projects receiving city dollars reserve 25 percent of work hours for New Haven residents.

Although the construction project is privately funded, Yale is still requiring that 25 percent of the roughly 700 workers involved in the project be New Haven residents. Already, an estimated 25 New Haven residents have been hired through unions or the Committee for a Workers’ International in positions such as carpenters and pipe insulators, according to the Yale Daily News.

The school hired Plainville, Conn.-based Manafort Brothers to oversee construction of the north college building, while Seekonk, Mass.-based J.L. Marshall & Sons will construct the south college building. New York-based Robert A.M. Stern Architects, founded and led by School of Architecture Dean Robert Stern, designed the new colleges, which will create a new sense of campus geography once the school’s footprint is significantly expanded.

The opening of the two new colleges will allow the school to admit about 200 more undergraduate students each year. The colleges are expected to open in August 2017. The construction of these new colleges will be the latest of several other projects that opened in recent years, including a new scientific research facility and the new Edward P. Evans Hall for the School of Management.

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Designed by SchenkelShultz Architecture of Orlando, Fla., in association with Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York, Heavener Hall’s design and construction used innovative Building Information Modeling (BIM) software to reduce construction conflicts, improve efficiencies and ensure work was completed successfully within the tight footprint. It also allowed for a “smart” record model of the completed building, which was designed to reflect the Collegiate Gothic architectural style found throughout the university’s historic district.

In addition to both small- and medium-sized classrooms, the facility includes study rooms, academic advisement areas, student commons, informal collaborative zones, a first floor café, faculty offices and more. It also provides round-the-clock access to the university’s business students.

“As you move up in the building, the first floor is more student-activity centric, the second floor is student-faculty related and the third floor is more related to faculty with these specialty programs,” said J. Thomas Chandler, AIA, president and chief operating officer of SchenkelShultz Architecture, to School Construction News at the project’s outset.

“This is a 21st century higher education building,” Chandler added. “The whole purpose of this new home was to create this collaborative and interactive environment for students and faculty. This gives them the opportunity to implement significant goals and objectives that the administration has for 21st century higher education.”

The building also helps meet the university’s sustainability goals and was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification. It incorporates green elements, such as highly insulated roof and walls, green glazing systems and an HVAC system that uses a chilled-beam approach. The design team also took advantage of the master campus storm-draining system already in place.

Ajax Building Corporation of Ajax, Fla., broke ground on Heavener Hall in May 2013. The building is named for James W. “Bill” Heavener, a 1970 graduate of the School of Business and current CEO of Full Sail University, who donated a substantial sum to the building’s development.

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The $22 million project is designed by Orlando, Fla.-based SchenkelShultz Architecture in association with New York-based Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Midway, Fla.-based Ajax Building Corporation is serving as the general contractor on the project.

The 56,200-square-foot building will give the undergraduate business program at the University of Florida one dedicated location for undergraduate students to learn. The current business program is spread out among several other buildings.

“This is a 21st century higher education building,” said J. Thomas Chandler, AIA, president and chief operating officer of SchenkelShultz Architecture. “The whole purpose of this new home was to create this collaborative and interactive environment for students and faculty. This gives them the opportunity to implement significant goals and objectives that the administration has for 21st century higher education.”

The new building, slated for completion in September 2014, is organized around three floors, Chandler said. The first floor encompasses a student commons area, with a very collaborative and technology-rich environment. This floor includes other support functions such as multipurpose areas and a small cafeteria. Chandler described the floor as one where “students interact with students.”

Students collaborate with faculty and staff on the second floor, Chandler said. The second floor will have an academic success center that allows for interactive instructional learning and gives the students the opportunity to work directly with academic advisers or teaching assistants on a much smaller scale outside of the classroom. This teaching floor will also house a series of larger scale classrooms. The third floor will house the dean’s suite, the international program and serve as a hub for career development.

“As you move up in the building, the first floor is more student-activity centric, the second floor is student-faculty related and the third floor is more related to faculty with these specialty programs,” Chandler said.

Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification, the building also incorporates green elements such as an HVAC system that has a chilled-beam approach. The design team was also able to take advantage of the master campus storm-draining system that is already in place at the university. Plus, the building will have a highly insulated roof, walls and glazing systems.

The most difficult part of the project, Chandler said, was designing it to fit the collegiate gothic style of architecture that makes up the historic district on the campus, where the new business school is located. Plus, he said the building is being constructed on an incredibly tight site, so being able to meet the historic guidelines and fit it into the campus utility infrastructure also became a challenge.

The design team used Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to optimize efficiencies and constructability. Using this software, they will also be able to provide a “smart” record model of the building at completion, which will help the maintenance and operations staff maintain the building in the future.

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