MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — The University of South Florida will welcome students back to campus later this week. For the first time, students will move into a residential hall on the Sarasota-Manatee campus.
University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee opened the doors to their new campus student center and Atala Residence Hall on Monday, giving members of the community and media a look inside.
“With this building, we transform from a commuter campus into a residential campus, which is a very big deal because we’ll get different students,” said Sarasota-Manatee Regional Chancellor Karen Holbrook said. “We will get out-of-state students, international students, and, of course, still have our commuter students.”
There will be 200 students who will call the new dorm home this school year. Those students will live in suites and apartment-style dorms on the upper four floors of the building. Downstairs in the student center, there is a cafe, dining center, game room, and bookstore for students. It is also the first bookstore on campus.
The expansion of the Sarasota-Manatee campus is the first since the campus opened in 2006.
“But it’s only the first. We’re very ambitious,” Holbrook said. "Our second building we want to put … is a nursing stem building. We need that very badly.”
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
