Liberty embarks on first residence hall in campus transformation

As Liberty University continues to make strides in its quarter-of-a-billion dollar campus transformation, Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. announced in Wednesday’s Convocation that the next step in this venture is the construction of a new eight-story tower residence hall in place of current residence halls 1-4 on Liberty’s Champion Circle, beginning next semester.

As the process begins, students currently living in those residence halls will be accommodated at the Quality Inn on Odd Fellows Road next to the Liberty Residential Annex (formerly the Lynchburg Inn). Liberty closed on the purchase of the Quality Inn today. Students will begin the transition mid-January and will enjoy the same services as residents of the Residential Annex.

Falwell thanked the students for their patience during the move: “They’re the ones sacrificing so we can make this university a world-class university in every way.”

The new state-of-the-art residence facility, scheduled to be finished by Fall 2014, will be large enough to house the entire “Circle” population and will be the first of six such residence halls that are planned to be built on Champion Circle. Falwell presented renderings of the future development to the students on Wednesday.

He said the current residence halls were built in the 1970s and were intended only to be temporary — but they have now been in use for 35 years.

“We wanted the current students to have the benefit now,” Falwell said of the new facility, which will feature two beds and a bathroom per room.

“The new dorms will help Liberty continue to attract the best Christian college students in the nation,” Falwell said in a letter to the students. “God has given Liberty the resources to make this university a better Christian university and we feel we have a responsibility to do it while construction costs are still low due to the poor economy and to do it without delay.”

Liberty has more than 60 construction projects currently under way, among them the Jerry Falwell Library, a new baseball stadium, a new basketball practice facility, and a (proposed) College of Osteopathic Medicine.