The renovation of the Streets dorm marks the latest addition to Saint Anselm’s campus. Collaborating with the admissions office, the college administration is further preparing Saint A’s for Vision 2030 by prepping buildings for future classes.
President Favazza, and the college administration, were in charge of the decision process of the building. The balance regarding the renovation was predicting the number of students graduating with the incoming first-year students. President Favazza decided that more housing options were needed after working with admissions.
President Favazza explained the need for new space, saying, “Some new programs that attracted more students to take a look at us, and as a result of that, our enrollment has grown. The sophomore and the junior classes are the second and third largest classes in the history of the college…We’re seeing some interest on the part of students…Because we enrolled more students, we knew we had to respond.”
William Furlong, CFO of Saint A’s, explained, “The success of our enrollment efforts led to a need for additional housing on campus. Transitioning this location into housing was one step toward addressing that need. We selected this area because we had previously used this space for housing during the pandemic. The biggest hurdle to overcome for this project was installing the bathroom facilities. While there had been a bathroom there previously, it did not have the correct number of showers, sinks, and water closets to support a residential population of 27. Our project manager, Matt Proulx, worked with our construction partner, Eckman Construction, to complete this project in seven weeks so it would be ready for the return of students in August.”
President Favazza described that admissions can only give accurate data on the next class in May. With the influx of students, the class of 2028 is the largest in the college’s history, the administration had to make room.
Due to the nature of Alumni Hall, the 4th floor gets very warm, especially for residents of Streets. The fourth floor of Streets had air conditioners installed. In looking upon the other floors of Streets, President Favazza explained that installing air conditioning in the rest of the building, it would require rewiring of the whole building and a change to the entire college’s electrical grid. Although an expensive proposition, President Favazza said it would be a project he would look into the future.
A problem of the Streets renovation was the displacement of offices for Professors of the Modern Languages Department. One of the classrooms on the fourth floor was converted into office space.
In regards to future building projects on campus for the college’s growth, President Favazza stated, “We’ve appointed a working group to look at Gadbois Hall, to see what would be the future use of the building…once the nurses move over to the new building. It’s a possibility that it could end up being changed into a resident hall.”
President Favazza is still preparing for the predicted demographic shifts of 2026. He explained that he wants to be strategic about new building projects in case there is a decline in enrollment. The next few projects undergone in the summer will be determined by next year’s enrollment, which won’t be definitive from the admissions office until May.