A closer look at how UAB’s campus could change over the next decade—and the data driving those changes.

1. Full House: Expanding Student Housing

Record enrollment numbers over the past decade have pushed UAB’s academic and housing options to the limit, even with the 2006 addition of the Blazer Hall residence hall and 2007 opening of the Heritage Hall classroom building. Enrollment has increased by nearly 2,000 students in the past eight years, and UAB has seen record enrollment for two consecutive years, with 17,543 students on campus in fall 2010. The vast majority of the recent arrivals are living on campus, too. Three-quarters of freshmen now live on-site.

As the university concentrates on significantly boosting undergraduate and graduate enrollment in the coming 10 years, planners are looking to create a new housing complex on UAB’s northern borders. The updated Campus Master Plan depicts a three-building housing village along 4th Avenue South facing academic buildings across a green vista that will also serve as a promenade to the new Blazer Stadium and put students only three blocks from the proposed new baseball stadium and the existing Railroad Park (see detail of Campus Master Plan map, above).