Some CSU freshman set to start college life living in a Best Western due to dorm renovations

Dorm life will quite literally be hotel living for some freshman college students in Fort Collins heading into the 2022-23 academic year. Dozens of freshmen will be living in a Best Western. This due to the available dorm rooms not meeting the amount of student demand.

Students and staff are already returning to Fort Collins and the CSU campus with classes starting in a couple weeks. But this year, for the first time, CSU has a record-breaking freshman class size that outnumbers the housing available for them. So now, they are going to be housed off campus in a local hotel.

 This problem is largely associated with the recent closure of Westfall Hall, one of two dormitory towers on campus, which typically houses 400 to 500 students each year. It is undergoing renovations.

CSU typically accepts more students than it expects to show up, as many students apply and then choose another school. But, this year more sent RSVPs than anticipated.

Many students will be housed at the Best Western across the street from the campus. CSU rented the whole building out and plans to make it the temporary dorm for its new class of freshmen, with the goal that each student in the hotel will be reassigned to an actual dorm before the end of the first semester.

"Within the first couple of weeks of school, we will start to move students out of our temporary housing and into the permanent spaces," said Laura Giles, the associate executive director housing dining services . "We feel like, within the first couple months, we will be able to get students out of Westfall, which is where we are using temporary housing, and students out of the hotel."

All of the king and queen beds have been removed from the hotel and replaced with twin beds as they would have in the dorms. Coming up in half an hour. Some students will also be in overflow housing that won't be in the rent hotel. Rather, they will live in study halls or dorm lounges. CSU plans to put locks on the doors to those common areas and black out the windows, putting beds in what would be communal spaces traditionally.  

CSU told CBS4's Dillon Thomas the university will still work to ensure each students receives as close to a traditional freshman experience as they can.

"We are providing the same experience for the students in the hotel as to what they would be getting on campus," Giles said. "So the meal plan that they would purchased through their selection choices, they can come on campus and be able to get food. What we are doing with our students in the hotel is doubling the Ram Cash, which is basically dining dollars they could go and spend elsewhere. So they would be able to spend that extra money over at the Lori Student Center, which is a little bit closer in proximity to the hotel."