In response to multiple years of record enrollment growth, the Department of Housing and Residential Life is building two more residential halls.
The project is called Hilltop Phase II and will be located next to Alamito and Cibolo Halls, which were built as part of the first phase of the Hilltop Project. This will consist of two residence halls, a dining hall and is set to be finished in August 2027.
“This year, we’re at 9,842 students assigned right now. So that’s up from in fall of 2022 we had 6,863,” Bill Mattera, former executive housing director and current associate vice president and chief of staff for Student Success said. “We’re three of the four phases into the expansion of our housing at this point.”
Hilltop Phase II will be the third expansion of housing in recent years, with Alamito and Cibolo Halls opening in 2024 and Castro Hall opening in August 2025. The housing expansion will add 1,500 new beds to the total housing inventory.
Mattera said because this is the third residential project built in recent years, they have been able apply lessons learned when building recent dorms. He said that problems such as electrical issues in Alamito and Cibolo are not present in Castro Hall and should not be present in Hilltop Phase II.
Hilltop Phase II will lean into the community spaces present in the previous projects, while also making some changes. Mattera said rooms in Phase II will not have closets, instead having wardrobes. He also said the bathrooms will be communal style instead of community style like the previous projects have.
“The bathroom will be a room with a door that closes and locks, the shower will be a room that closes and locks, and so they’ll be in a similar bathroom format, but they’ll be a little bit more private,” Mattera said.
Unlike the other recent developments, Hilltop Phase II includes plan for a dining hall connected to one of the buildings. Mattera said the dining hall will have 550 seats and will be similar to Harris and Commons Dining Halls. The project will also include improved walkways, such as bridges connecting to the LBJ Student Center.
Construction of the project will be limited to times when class is in session, so that disturbances to studying and sleeping are kept at a minimum.
“The only exception to that is concrete pours, which happen a little bit earlier,” Mattera said. “We have a pretty good system of notifying the residents, so we’ll notify them 24 to 48 hours before a concrete pour.”
According to a Texas State spokesperson, this growth in on-campus housing means the university was able to avoid temporary hotel housing, which it have been needed in recent years.
“Housing and Residential Life reserved a number of hotel rooms as backups in case the number of incoming students exceeded expectations, but ultimately those extra rooms have not been necessary,” Jayme Blaschke, assistant director of media relations, wrote in an email to The Star.
Despite not needing to use temporary hotel housing, residence halls are still above normal capacity.
“We are full and thriving,” Kate Ganno-Cullinan, executive director of DHRL said during the Sept. 2 Campus Safety Committee meeting. “We are at 103% occupancy.”
According to Mattera, DHRL is able to be above 100% capacity, but not use temporary hotel housing because they have something called “flex housing,” where other rooms, such as floor lounges are turned into temporary bedrooms.
“Those don’t count as part of our permanent occupancy,” Mattera said. “And so when we’re using those spaces, they count as sort of additional beds towards what our buildings are occupied at.”
Mattera said students will not be moved from the “flex housing” to regular rooms during the semester. He described mid-semester moves for that as disruptive.
When Hilltop Phase II opens, DHRL will have approximately 12,000 beds, which Mattera said will allow them to house about 25% of students on campus.
Mattera said there are no further plans for additional dorms on campus after Hilltop Phase II is complete, but DHRL will evaluate older residence halls on campus.
“I think our next move after Hilltop II is to look at what we have and sort of figure out what do we need to do next,” Mattera said.
