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A number of campus building, including Storey House, Casa Italiana and Bob, are scheduled to be revamped over the coming summer and are to be completed before residents arrive in September. Stanford’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) will be upgrading roofs, plumbing, interiors and other features of the dorms.
The Capital Improvement Program is expected to cost $93.3 million over the next two years. CIP was created in 1992 after an extensive study of Stanford’s facilities; the upcoming renovations are the last from that study to be completed.
CIP handles all undergraduate and graduate living quarters. “This program addresses the needs of all undergraduate and graduate Student Housing residences, including the Row houses. The order in which the buildings were to be renovated was initially determined based upon life safety, code compliance, accessibility, deferred maintenance and other operational needs,” said Marie Oamek, Stanford Housing’s Manager of Information and Communication.
“Housing re-evaluates this list in advance of each project year to incorporate updated information and to validate the order in which the projects will be completed,” she continued.
In addition to the three houses, CIP has identified a number of buildings on campus that need energy efficiency upgrades. According to the CIP website, 14 buildings on campus are responsible for almost a quarter of Stanford’s overall electricity usage. These buildings are slated to receive $15 million to address this problem.
Usually, Capital Improvement will work on one building at a time, but, thanks to an unnamed donor, all three of these houses will undergo simultaneous renovations at an estimated cost of $3 million each.
“The original intention was to continue on the scheduled program of one house per year, but we have had a generous donor step forward to underwrite the cost of the three simultaneous renovations, so they are being moved up. The Robert Moore houses were actually built in the 1970’s, so are not very old, and Storey was substantially renovated in 1982,” said Oamek.
Story House is a human biology themed row house, meaning that the house is, according to the Storey House website, “devoted to developing an intellectual community among Human Biology majors at Stanford…allowing faculty and students to become acquainted and share their…interests and research.” Changes being made to the house include standard improvements such as roof repairs and plumbing and interior refurbishing.
No overall changes to the floorplans will be undertaken. The most prominent changes are a result of American Disabilities Act and earthquake and fire code compliance.
Senior Todd Yecies lived in Storey House his sophomore year. He recalls, “In terms of the house itself, I thought the house was pretty nice. The kitchen seemed relatively new. There were some things that they are probably going to change, like a kitchenette area that is now only used for storage. The restrooms were nice, not quite as nice as the new ones put in here [Wilbur] but there wasn’t anything wrong with them. There was actually a bathtub room on the third floor that was a little bit shoddy, and I’m not sure if anyone actually used that. That room will probably be put to better use.”
Storey, along with Bob and La Casa Italiana, will receive new energy and water efficient appliances, upgraded fire alarms and sprinklers, and will receive work on new paint and floors.
“The room across the hall from me had to move out for a few weeks because water had accumulated above their room and had worked its way through part of the roof and the roof collapsed while they were gone on break. There were definitely some things in the house that need to be fixed, but with regards to overall appearances and how the house felt, I think it was in pretty good shape,” said Yecies.
Storey is made up of one room doubles and triples with the exception of staff rooms. Due to the renovations, in-house draws for these three houses will be pushed back until fall quarter.
