Reprinted form Media Relations at Illinois State University.

Illinois State University dedicated the new Cardinal Court apartments on August 9.

Cardinal Court apartments will house 894 students, primarily sophomores, providing them an opportunity to experience apartment-style living combined with the benefits of university housing.

University President Al Bowman was one of several officials to address the crowd, and he praised the apartments as a vision of future university housing.

“Cardinal Court apartments will serve as the new standard of design, construction, amenities and services,” Bowman said, adding the construction made excellent use of recycled and regional construction materials.

The project is a joint construction venture of public and private funds.

“This project also places Illinois State at the national forefront of universities that create innovative projects to serve its constituents without saddling the institution or the state with additional debt,” said Bowman.

Cardinal Court is the culmination of years of planning, with the groundbreaking in May 2011. The on-campus student apartments are located on Gregory Street, where the previous Cardinal Court stood from 1957 to 2010.

“In a way, the old Cardinal Court apartments are still with us. To be precise, they are under us — their remnants ground and mixed into the land that supports this wonderful new complex,” said Director of University Housing Maureen Blair.

Students who moved into the apartments in mid-August enjoyed apartment-style rooms and Cardinal Court’s center, which contains a multipurpose room, a workout area, a quiet area with couches, game tables and a small theatre with four levels of seating. An outside seating area faces a courtyard in the middle of the buildings. There is also an outside volleyball court and basketball court as well as a grassy area.

One thought on “Cardinal Court dedicated

  1. JMills says:

    Geez, it looks like a vinyl village that’s missing some sod!! What happended to all the brick that was on the old Cardinal Court apartments? Why couldn’t it be reused?