San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
UCSD WILL BREAK GROUND ON SEVERAL NEW BUILDINGS
Residential village, student union to cost nearly $1 billion
UC San Diego’s seemingly endless growth will expand further this week when the school starts building a 2,400-bed residential village and a large student union that will become the social center of campus.
The projects will jointly cost nearly $1 billion and are meant to help meet a demand for housing and create a central gathering spot at a school whose enrollment could rise by 7,000 over the next decade. The school now has almost 43,000 students.
The new housing village — to be known as Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood — will erase a part of the university’s history. The school will tear down low-rise apartments that have served UCSD since the mid-1970s.
In addition to housing, Ridge Walk North will provide teaching and administrative space for Thurgood Marshall College, the School of Global Policy and Strategy, and the Department of Economics, the campus said. The complex will have four buildings, the largest of which will be 18 stories.
The project is part of a larger effort to add about 5,700 beds by late 2025 or early 2026. By that point, UCSD would be able house more than 24,000 students, making it one of the largest residential universities in the country.
Triton Center will cost about $428 million to build and will provide UCSD with space for such things as student health, academic resources, an alumni and welcome center, and a 500-person event space.
The complex will be a brief walk from the university’s emerging “front door,” which is composed of a Blue Line trolley station, the Design and Innovation Building, Epstein Family Amphitheater, and Pepper Canyon West, a 1,300-bed residential center that’s under construction.
Pepper Canyon West will have buildings 22 and 23 stories tall, adding to the school’s growing skyline.