River Campus’ newest residence hall, which will overlook the Genesee River from its east side, will also bear its name.
Scheduled to open to students this fall, the 72,000 square-foot Genesee Hall—which will also overlook the University’s Brian F. Prince Athletic Complex—will feature four residential floors housing approximately 150 freshman students, as well as meeting rooms for study groups and workshops, a new locker room facility, and training rooms for athletic programs. Genesee Hall follows O’Brien Hall, completed in 2012, as the newest undergraduate residences to be built on River Campus since 1968.
“Naming our new undergraduate residence Genesee Hall seems fitting as a nod toward our history and the natural beauty that the river provides to our campus,” said Richard Feldman, dean of the College. “I’m very excited about the completion of Genesee Hall as a space that will integrate the residential, academic and co-curricular facets of student life at the University.”
The facility’s top four floors of residential space will feature single and double bedrooms; the main level will be dedicated to academic and student life services with meeting rooms and offices. In the residential space, architects designed a bathroom area in the center of each floor that has six individual fully equipped bathrooms—each bathroom pod contains a private shower, sink, and toilet behind a lockable door. Additionally, Genesee Hall will include three single bedrooms with attached handicapped-accessible bathrooms in accordance with ADA standards.
The first two floors of the building will feature the new Varsity House, including locker rooms for the men’s and women’s outdoor teams, as well as sports medicine and team equipment rooms.
Genesee Hall will be a modern, air conditioned facility with a high level of commitment to sustainable design, construction, and operational practice. The project is targeting LEED Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) designation. Among the sustainable features of the building are water efficient fixtures in key areas, targeting a 45 percent reduction in water usage; and implementation of a whole building energy model to overcome the challenge of providing an abundance of fresh air to varied spaces, such as the locker rooms. The whole building energy model maximizes the use of materials and systems to result in an energy performance 14 percent better than a baseline building in terms of annual energy costs.
The concept for the project is by Ayers Saint Gross, Architects and Planners. The design build team is The Pike Company in association with SWBR Architect.
