Over the past few years, Mike Barnett, vice president of administration and finance, has been helping Fort Hays State University plan for the new housing project by estimating and regulating potential costs.
Barnett has many responsibilities at FHSU, but he has many people to help him manage the finances and estimates for any project associated with the university.
“I oversee all of the physical plans on campus, the facilities, Dana Cunningham is our Director of Facilities Planning and he reports to me. He and I, along with Student Affairs, are involved in the design and the operation, bonding, borrowing money, and financing the project,” Barnett said.
The main goal for residential housing project is to create more housing for FHSU and expand the campus as a whole.
“We’ve been working on a plan to replace Weist Hall for four or five years now. For obvious reasons Weist Hall has run its life and needs to be replaced and we’d like to provide better facilities for students, upgrade the facilities as far as living arrangements, this facility will have single bedrooms in it rather than the double occupancy that Weist Hall has in it currently. It have a little bit better facilities for restrooms and showers and things of that nature. It was time to upgrade and that’s the reason for this project,” Barnett said.
With the new residential housing, Weist can be replaced, while adding space for rooming on campus.
“Weist Hall’s maximum capacity is about 440 students. This new facility, the two facilities combined, will house about 504. It will help support the freshmen class that will occupy most of this facility,” Barnett said.
For FHSU to begin any major project, Barnett and his colleagues have to present a program plan, to the Kansas Board of Regents, first. A program plan includes a general outline of what they expecting to build on a certain site, as well as the site itself. The plan also has to include least a rough estimate budget of the total project.
The plan originally presented has been changed and modified recently due to the changes in the project itself and the fact that the university now has to borrow money now compared to the original plan in which the university was not going to borrow money. Barnett said the reason for increased cost was due to the various changes made over time during the progress of the project.
The plan has been changed and modified recently due to the changes in the project itself and then the fact that we’re going to borrow money now versus originally we weren’t originally going to borrow money, but the project cost went up.
“The total project cost is estimated to be just under 37 million dollars,” Barnett said.
Once the Board of Regents approves the plan, the university can hire architects to create structure planning and details for the housing project.
The student organizations that will potentially buy-in to the new housing will have to consider the reasoning behind the cost of each unit.
“The themed housing, the way it’s designed, will cost more per square foot. So what the buy-in rate is for is to compensate the university for that added cost, so that we can keep the bed rate for the organization the same that it is for the other facility,” Barnett said.
The project’s goal is to improve facilities, construct new facilities, and support the growth projections.
“Weist Hall’s maximum capacity is about 440 students. This new facility, the two facilities combined, will house about 504. It will help support the freshmen class that will occupy most of this facility,” Barnett said.
The bed rate itself is yet to be determined, but it is estimated to be between the current McMindes double occupancy rate and the Agnew and Heather rate.
Barnett believes the project will give students a better place to live and help the university graduate more students in the long run.
“It’s very needed on campus. It will be a great addition once we get it finished,” Barnett said.