Oakland Project Approved at UMCP

The Board of Public Works reconsidered and approved a "public", on-campus housing project called Hall. The complex will house around 650 students, who will mostly be underclassmen. The rooms will be in traditional residential hall style.

Funding for the project comes from UMCP's "cash-on-hand" fund balance. The USM has made it a practice to not approve such expenditures, but made a compromise with UMCP on this specific project. UMCP is concurrently pursuing other "public-private" and private housing arrangements to deal with the housing shortage. The complex will cost, in total, around $80 million.

Briefly, here are the different types of residential living funding arrangements:

• public- completely funded by state dollars; management is run by the University, usually through Residential life
• public-private partnership- the university divides responsibilities with a third party, including funding of the project, management of the construction,ownership of the land, and management of the building and property
• private- all matters controlled and operated by a third party

The approval by the Board of Public Works was covered by WTOP news in an article today.