Universities Building Again After Recession

SOUTH BEND, Ind. ― A towering blue-and-white crane looms over the eastern edge of the University of Notre Dame campus, where a 220,000-square-foot research building is under construction. At an adjoining site and elsewhere around campus, backhoes and bulldozers are installing tunnels for sanitary sewers, electric lines and other infrastructure as part of the largest construction project in school history.

The Notre Dame campus is becoming a vast construction zone, leading a building boom that’s taking hold on campuses across the country as the economy improves.

“There’s definitely been an increase in construction activity on college campuses since the recession,” said Dan Kenney, head of campus planning and site design for Sasaki Associates, a Massachusetts-based planning and design firm.

The new spending reflects pent-up demand as schools from Yale University to the University of Texas try to elevate their missions and find ways to attract and retain students.

Private schools, which aren’t bound by state education dollars, are leading the way.

Many of the construction projects focus on student centers and housing, because schools believe students who live on campus are more likely to graduate, Kenney said. The University of Kentucky has added more than 5,700 residence hall beds, including five new residence halls with a total of 2,381 beds since 2013.

Other projects involve renovating aging structures and erecting new ones to bring in more students.