I wanted to share the following article with you:

SFGATE: SUNY Poly resumes effort for dorm project at Albany campus

Building proposals sought for work on Fuller Road campus

By Larry Rulison

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="431"] SUNY Polytechnic Institute on Fuller Road Friday Sept. 18, 2015 in Albany, N.Y. (Michael P. Farrell/Times Union)[/caption]

Albany

SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany is again looking for proposals from construction firms and developers to build its first dorm at its Fuller Road campus.

SUNY Poly has hoped to build its own student housing site since becoming independent from the University at Albany several years ago. The dorm would be ready for the start of the 2017-18 academic year.

The dorm would be built on the site of an existing parking lot at the SUNY Poly campus on Fuller Road and would house 130 students.

SUNY Poly has also issued a request for proposals (RFP) — invitations for companies to submit applications for projects — for an office building with parking between the ZEN building and NanoFabX, the large building where SUNY Poly runs its Global 450 Consortium fab.

The new building would have enough parking space for 750 cars on six to seven floors of parking that would be topped by two floors of office space that would have 50,000 square-feet each. It will also be required to have a pedestrian link between NanoFab X and ZEN. SUNY Poly wants the office and parking complex completed by March 2018.

SUNY Poly is asking developers to potentially invest in the projects and help finance them.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="349"] A rendering of what the proposed SUNY Poly student housing on Fuller Road near Loughlin Street could look like. There are 400 units proposed for that area in phases 2 and 3 of the project. (SUNY Polytechnic Institute)[/caption]

SUNY Poly has increasingly used private financing for its construction projects.

In the past, the building linking ZEN and NanoFabX was designated to be called NanoFabXX and serve as an extension of NanoFabX.

SUNY Poly had previously issued an RFP for a dorm project at its campus but decided to pull it after there was only one response, by Columbia Development of Albany.

In the months leading up to the requests being issued, an entity controlled by one of Columbia Development's executives had spent millions of dollars buying up property on Loughlin Street, a dead-end street off Fuller Road that is next to the SUNY Poly campus.

It doesn't appear SUNY Poly ever planned to build dorms on the site, however, and Columbia Development said there was no connection between the land purchases and SUNY Poly's student housing needs.

lrulison@timesunion.com • 518-454-5504 • @larryrulison