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Open House Introduces New East Campus Suites to Public

BIG RAPIDS – Ferris State University’s new East Campus Suites were officially unveiled to the public today (Aug. 20) during an open house that included guided tours of Ferris’ newest on-campus student housing facilities.

“I’ve yet to take someone through East Campus Suites who wasn’t in awe as they looked around at how beautiful the facility is,” said Jon Shaffer, Ferris’ director of Housing and Residential Life. “The opening of the new East Campus Suites is an exciting time for our campus and the community and especially for our students who will move into the buildings at the beginning of the fall semester.”

The new student residences represent the culmination of a 15-month building project that began with the demolition of existing buildings in June 2009 and feature the Pine Valley, Oak View and Maple Grove units with 72 four-bedroom and six two-bedroom suites. The residences are conveniently located near the Rock Café, Student Recreation Center and Top Taggart Field.

Michael Hughes, associate vice president for Physical Plant, spoke highly of a facility he said is designed to meet the needs and expectations of a new generation of students.

“This generation of students has different expectations than those in the 1950s and 1960s,” he said. “We believe East Campus Suites is a housing option that will help us appeal to students who have those different expectations of what a campus living environment should be. A lot of our students have had their own rooms at home and expect the same in college.”

As part of the enthusiasm associated with the open house, Shaffer emphasized that East Campus Suites will be Ferris’ first LEED-certified building project. LEED is a standard for measuring a building’s sustainability and is a way for building designs to show they are “green” projects.

“This is going to be our first LEED building, and we’re going to be shooting for LEED Gold,” he said of certification levels include certified, silver, gold and platinum. “We’re going to go for gold, and if we can get that, it will be pretty phenomenal.”