The Daily Campus was given a tour of the five new residence halls that are set to open in August 2014. (Christopher Saul / The Daily Campus)

With construction for the new residence halls well underway, project engineer Grant Hagen offered a preview tour and sat down with The Daily Campus to explain the new buildings from a structural point of view.

Hagen said that when he joined the project last February, the construction crews were already moving in.

The buildings are set to be finished by April 2014.

“We relocated the road, put up our fences…so we kind of took over this whole area,” Hagen said.

All necessary, he said, for such a large project.

“There’s five residential commons buildings, a dining hall and a parking garage,” Hagen said.

The five buildings will each house 250 rooms, with a total minimum of 1250 beds.

The current plan is for the new residential community to be designated to house sophomores when the mandatory two-year rule for students living on campus goes into effect.

The new buildings will be home not only to students. Hagen explained that on the first floor of each building is a faculty apartment and a hall director apartment.

Both will have outside entrances as well as residence-access from inside.

These apartments will be three bedrooms and three baths to accommodate faculty and director families and create a real “home.”

For students, their sleeping spaces won’t be quite as generous.

“It’s pretty small once you put the furniture in. It gets pretty tight,” Hagen said.

However, the communities themselves will offer unique features to accommodate group living.

“There’s a mix between double rooms and single rooms, and then community bathrooms,” Hagen said. “Every floor has a floor lounge and two or three community lounges.”

With bathrooms to be shared amongst seven to eight rooms, Hagen said, “it’s a pretty good ratio” and will prevent crowding during shower times.

The dining hall will also be distinct and is designed to have two levels with a grand staircase and curving aesthetic.

There will be outdoor patios on both the lower and upper levels.

As of now, the space is being designed to have serving and seating on the lower level, and the top level will be reserved solely for dining space.

According to Hagen, two of the buildings have been named by now: Lloyd Commons and Armstrong.

With what he estimates to be around 300 people working on the construction site, Hagen is confident that the project will finish well on time.

“Everything’s actually been going pretty good,” he said.