Florida A&M University Breaks Ground on New Residence Hall

Florida A&M University recently broke ground on a new, 700-bed residence hall for its campus in Tallahassee, Fla., according to local news. The dorm for upperclassmen is scheduled to open by fall 2025 and will bring the total capacity of beds on campus to over 4,000. The goal of the project is to provide more housing opportunities to FAMU students while offering an alternative to rising off-campus housing costs.

The university announced in February that funding for the project will come from a $97.5-million, 30-year federal loan from the U.S. Department of Education’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Capital Financing Program.

“This is a huge step for Florida A&M University to increase its capacity to house and educate the best and brightest students in the nation.  I am extremely honored to have led the financial and administrative tasks associated with the HBCU Loan,” said university CFO and Vice President for Finance and Administration Rebecca W. Brown. “There was great collaboration among the federal government, the State of Florida, and the University.”

The new residence hall will stand on the site of a former gravel parking lot north of FAMU Towers, another university housing development which was completed in 2020. The residence hall will also include space for 193 parking spaces, according to a university news release.

The university is partnering with FINFROCK Construction, LLC, as the project’s general contractor.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Can AI Help Build Stronger Communities in Student Housing?

    Student housing success is shifting from operational performance to student experience, with belonging now at the center. A recent 2025 report underscores a growing emphasis on student well-being, community, and engagement, signaling that expectations now extend beyond logistics to ensure students feel supported in their living environments. AI is enabling that shift by reducing administrative workload and giving teams more time to focus on meaningful student engagement.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Compton High School

    Compton High School

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. Compton High School has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Project of Distinction award in the category of New Construction.

  • Campus Safety Requires Using Every Resource Available

    Across the U.S., school and campus leaders are facing a security landscape that has changed dramatically over the past decade. Incidents on school property have increased in recent years, with several consecutive years setting record totals. According to analysis of data by CNN, dozens of shootings now occur on school grounds annually across K-12 and higher education environments.