Rose-Hulman breaks ground on $30M residence hall
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Officials at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology broke ground Thursday on a new, $30 million residence hall for first-year students.
The new residence hall is being built across from Speed Residence Hall in space currently used for parking. The hall is expected to house about 160 students among its four floors and will also feature student lounges, kitchenettes and study spaces on each floor.
The project comes following an application season where Rose-Hulman saw a record number of prospective students seeking to attend the institute. Officials in a news release this week say they believe the residence hall will help accommodate first-year students as Rose-Hulman reports near-record enrollment numbers overall. The institute’s enrollment has grown to nearly 2,250 students.
Rose-Hulman President Robert Coons told Inside INdiana Business it will be the first time since 1962 that first-year students will have a new residence hall.
“Freshman are required to live on campus. It’s a critical part of what we think is the educational process and the product that we deliver, and it was past time to update our facilities,” Coons said. “So, we are really thrilled to be in a position now to do that.”
The new residence hall is expected to open by fall 2025 and will allow Rose-Hulman officials to begin renovations at Speed Hall during the 2025-26 school year.
“Speed Hall holds about 120 students and was built in the 60s, actually, and needs some love and attention,” said Coons. “And so, we’ll be focused on in the school year ’25-’26 renovating Speed, so that when we’re done, we will have a complete net gain of 160 student capacity.”
The institute has updated housing available to upperclassmen students over the years, adding Percopo Hall in 2000, Apartments East and West Halls in 2004 and Lakeside Hall in 2012 to its offerings.
Institute officials say this latest additional to Rose-Hulman’s student housing comes as more upperclassmen students choose to live on campus in a residence hall or fraternity and sorority housing.
“We find that students that live on campus academically tend to do a little better from a GPA perspective and have a little more of a bump just in terms of having access to services and being more integrated with the rest of the community,” said Coons. “So, we are really excited about having additional capacity to have more students physically live on campus.”
