After more than 70 years, Santa Rosa Hall — UC Santa Barbara‘s first residence hall — has come tumbling down.
The residential hall was demolished last month. Crews are currently clearing the site and getting it ready for the construction of housing this fall.
The 412-bed residential hall will be replaced with four new buildings and 1,688 beds as part of the East Campus Housing Project. The California Coastal Commission approved the new development in May.
The project includes one 85-foot-tall building, one 75-foot-tall building and two 65-foot-tall buildings.
Instead of on-site parking, residents will park in existing campus lots 22, 38 and 50. The project also includes 1,688 new bicycle parking spaces.
Construction is on schedule, according to Kiki Reyes, media relations manager for UCSB. The site is expected to be cleared by the start of fall quarter, which begins Sept. 24.
The new residential community is expected to open by fall 2028.
Santa Rosa Hall opened in 1955 off UCEN Road. It is located near two other two-story residential dorms: Anacapa Hall and Santa Cruz Hall.
Those three, with the nearby eight-story San Miguel and San Nichols residence halls, were known as the Channel Island 5 (CHI-5) residences on the university’s East Campus.
The East Campus project is the second of a two-phase plan to provide 3,500 new undergraduate student beds.
The San Benito housing project fell under the first phase, which started last summer.
San Benito is being built on the northwest corner of campus on a roughly 5-acre site between Mesa Road and Stadium Road, near Harder Stadium and across the road from the campus police department. It will add 2,224 student beds in seven apartment-style buildings to the campus by fall 2027.
The university is building the new apartments and residential halls in lieu of the controversial Munger Hall project, which would have put 3,500 students in one massive residence hall.
The university revised its housing plans after backlash from students, staff and local officials, who were concerned about overcrowding, safety and the largely windowless design.
