Hotel could provide student housing

ROCK SPRINGS — Not long ago, largely because of the energy boom, workers could hardly find a vacant house or hotel room in Sweetwater County.

It was even harder for students at Western Wyoming Community College facing full dorms and long waiting lists.

How times have changed.

College officials are negotiating to buy the vacant Wingate Inn located about a mile from the Western Wyoming campus for use as a residence hall, administrators said.

A new student residence hall will help fill the school’s need for living quarters for full-time students.

At the behest of the WWCC Board of Trustees, the college has been negotiating with the now-defunct hotel’s owners to purchase the empty building, according to Marty Kelsey, vice president for administrative services.

Officials estimated it will cost approximately $5.3 million to buy the property and building, an adjacent lot that would be used for parking, dormitory furniture and other items.

The college recently opened a new dorm that was constructed on campus, but there are still more than 80 students on a waiting list seeking student housing.

The Wingate Inn is expected to house about 120 rent-paying students.

“We’re hoping we can get this deal done,” Kelsey said. “This would really help us with our housing situation. It would be huge for us.”

WWCC currently has six residence halls, three of which were built in 1975. Two additional dorms were built in 1985 and 1995, and another residence hall opened last year.

Kelsey said the purchase has been approved by the Wyoming Community College Commission.

The project also requires the approval of the Wyoming Legislature since any capital construction or acquisition of $1 million or greater must receive state approval, even though no state funding will be used.

“We have some money from local sources we’ve had for a while and it’s enough to pay for this residence hall,” Kelsey said. “What we didn’t have enough money to do in the last couple of years was to build a new residence hall.”

Located atop College Hill near downtown Rock Springs, WWCC is the fifth of seven community colleges in Wyoming. The school was established in 1959.

Just 40 students enrolled for college credit courses during the school’s first year. The school occupied the former Reliance High School briefly in the early 1960s, before a new $1.8 million campus was constructed in 1969.

WWCC now enrolls more than 2,500 students for college credit courses and full-time equivalent students.

About 45 percent of students come from Sweetwater County and 45 percent from surrounding counties in southwest Wyoming. Roughly 10 percent are from out of state.

Kelsey said other colleges around the region have converted hotels and motels to residence halls.

“This building is particularly attractive to us because it’s very close to the campus -it’s about 1.1 mile from the Wingate to the college entrance -and because it was built in 2005 and appears to be in wonderful shape,” he said.

Kelsey said the college hopes to have the purchase approved and in place by March, with an eye toward opening the new residence hall in August in time for the 2010-11 school year.