UI's plans for Iowa House won't be approved today

A plan to turn the Iowa House Hotel into dorm rooms at the University of Iowa won't go to the state Board of Regents for approval Thursday morning.

UI officials had originally planned to seek regent approval to move forward with planning on the project, to have the Iowa House Hotel in the Iowa Memorial Union turned into dorm rooms for fall 2011. But Doug True, UI senior vice president for finance, said UI officials decided to pull that item from the agenda for now.

Instead, UI officials will come back to the regents at a later date, hopefully in June, with a more comprehensive plan for the residence halls that looks at immediate space needs but also longer term needs, True said. The Iowa House Hotel conversion could still be a part of that larger plan, and is still an option on the table to help meet more immediate space demands with growing enrollment, True said.

“We just need to do more work,” True said. “We need to look at the series of options we have to accommodate students better in the residence system and look at the whole package, not just one piece.”