UNCW to use overflow housing for incoming freshman

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - Some incoming freshmen at UNCW will be staying in dorm lounge areas to help accommodate for a larger freshman class.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington will be housing 200 more freshman than the school originally planed on having for the year.

“Thankfully, it’s a problem that UNCW has had not in the recent past with some of the challenges of COVID, and what not. Prior to that, we had some infrastructure already in place in terms of some lounges that we’re able to turn into bedrooms,” said Dr. Kevin Meaney, executive director of Housing and Residence life.

He says the lounges that overflow students will stay in are still apart of the normal freshman resident halls, although they are a little different than other dorm rooms.

“We identify some spaces that we think we can turn into bedrooms, and we do everything we need to do to turn them into bedrooms. And so they usually already have locks on them, but we switch them from lounge locks to bedroom locks. Oftentimes, they have larger windows, so we have special order window coverings, mainly blinds to put up in there. Sometimes the doors have windows, and we get special, either frosting or blinds,” Meaney explains.

Couches and lounge chairs will be replaced for traditional dorm room furniture like beds, desks and closets.

Meaney says the traditional lounge rooms come in different sizes depending on the residence hall. Students can also be placed in double, triple or quad rooms, which is based off the rooms’ square footage. Overflow students will be placed in Pelican, Sandpiper, Innovation, Keystone and Cornerstone halls.

“Typically, if the if the space is lets say, about 175 square feet, that’s a double something that’s in the closer to 300 square feet, that’s a triple and then something that’s, you know, over 300 square feet, it’s going to be we could probably get four sets of furniture in there,” says Meaney.

Meaney said he understands some students might have had different expectations for their freshman year. Overflow students will be paying $600 less in room fees to help makeup for the inconvenience.

“We’ve thought really long and hard about how to do this one, make sure we’re doing it the right way. The goal is to make sure they’re still part of the community,” he adds.

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