New Student Services Building for the University of Miami

Although final plans are still being developed, a three-story, 30,000-square-foot facility on the campus of the University of Miami in Florida will be home to a new “one-stop” center for student-facing service departments, the Camner Center for Academic Resources and the Counseling Center. The current Counseling Center building will be demolished to make room for an improved entryway to the new Student Housing Village and Pavia Parking Garage.

University of Miami Student Services

The second floor of the building will house the Camner Center for Academic Resources, which will relocate from its present location. With its core focus on supporting students academically and working directly with faculty, the new space will allow for expanded and enhanced programming and will afford the center the opportunity to serve more students with a variety of customized academic services.

Designed for growth in both staff and programing, the third floor of the building will be reserved exclusively for the Counseling Center. In this new space, the center will be able to host workshops and group sessions, provide training to doctoral students through its American Psychosocial Association accredited training program, and offer other services.

The university has partnered with CIVICA Architecture to design the building, and the total project is estimated to cost $15 million. By including various technical and passive design elements aimed at addressing the climatic challenges of buildings in South Florida’s tropical environment, the project is expected to obtain LEED Silver certification.

Construction is expected to begin in May 2019.

Featured

  • Architectural Power for the Modern Campus Landscape

    For generations, an outdoor classroom only required a textbook and a patch of grass. Today, not only has the laptop replaced the printed pages, the rise of agile learning has turned campuses into study halls with students listening to lectures and researching topics from quads, gardens, and plazas. The challenge for architects and facility managers is to provide connectivity without cluttering the landscape with visual eyesores or creating safety hazards with extension cords.

  • Colorado School District Breaks Ground on Unified PK–12 Campus

    The Haxtun School District No. Re-2J in Haxtun, Colo., recently announced that ground has been broken on a renovation/addition project that will unite its two schools, Haxtun Elementary and Haxtun Jr/Sr High School, according to a news release.

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Montclair State University Starts Construction on $120M STEM Building

    Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., recently broke ground on a new $120-million Interdisciplinary Science Building, according to university news. The university partnered with HoK Architects for the project’s design, and it’s scheduled to open in time for the 2028–29 academic year.