On a beautiful summer morning, more than 200 Bridgewater faculty, staff, students and local residents celebrated the completion of a $14 million dollar student housing project on the rural campus of Bridgewater College.
The new “Stone Village” as named by the college for its past President, Mr. Phillip Stone, will be a complex of five, two-story, colonial-designed housing that will be on the cutting edge of energy efficiency and minimize its environmental impact on the rural campus. The housing is registered as a potential Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver project and incorporates such green features as high efficiency HVAC, occupancy sensor lighting, recycled building materials and even the interior paints that were used were all environmentally friendly to improve indoor air quality.
Speaking for Rural Development, newly appointed Deputy Under Secretary, Doug O’Brien commented, “Not only is this project easy on the environment, it will also allow Bridgewater College to save money on its operation into the future.”
Much of the environmentally green design was a result of direct consultation with the students currently attending college at Bridgewater. “We asked the students what type of housing would you like us to build and their answer is exactly what we have here today,” said College President, Mr. George Cornelius.
In addition to the Stone Village Housing, the Rural Development Community Facilities funding is also being used to renovate and expand two existing student housing buildings to help accommodate a total of 87 additional students for this fall’s enrollment.
