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

  • Big Horn Academy

    Big Horn Academy

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

  • 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.

  • KWK Architects Announces Full Transition to Lawrence Group Branding

    KWK Architects recently announced that it will complete its transition to the Lawrence Group brand effective July 1, according to a news release. The merger marks the end of a three-year strategic integration process that began in March 2023 to unite the firms.

  • 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.