$10 million donation to rename residence hall won’t affect construction plans

The K, located adjacent to the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, is set to open fall 2019 and will offer housing for approximately 400 students, helping the university enforce its mandate for all underclassmen to live in on-campus housing. Photo by Jack Clendening

An anonymous $10 million donation made to Chapman’s new residence hall, The K – originally called the Villa Park Orchards Residential Village – will not go toward building or construction plans, said Dave Sundby, director of Residence Life and First Year Experience, but will help the school’s “financial health” after its investment in the housing project. 

“What the donation is going to look like for building operations, building features … well, the building is mostly built,” Sundby said. “It’s not going to transform what the final project is going to look like.”

Sundby was made aware of the anonymous donation about two weeks before it was publicly announced by President Daniele Struppa at Chapman’s annual State of the University speech, which took place Feb. 22 this year. Struppa said that he had met the anonymous donor four years ago and kept up communication with her. 

“We asked, from her perspective, what was Chapman doing well and what Chapman wasn’t doing well,” Struppa told The Panther. “She found that we should be building more and better residence halls, which is something that we already wanted to do. 

Chapman had development plans to build and open a new residence hall on the adjacent side of Palm Avenue “five or six years ago,” according to Sundby. The site was deemed unfit for housing construction when toxic soil was found. The site was later used to build the Lastinger Tennis Center, which opened Oct. 2017. 

“That was the original location where it was going to be. I don’t know how similar from a building design standpoint it was, but it was the same idea in that it would have about a 400-student occupancy.”

Struppa mentioned residence halls like the $150 million Chapman Grand, purchased by the university in November 2017, to the donor, then proposed a $10 million donation.

Struppa called the anonymous woman the “perfect donor,” as her gift did not come with any conditions or specifications, he said. 

“With a gift of $10 million, you could say ‘I think you should change the color,’ or something like that,” Struppa said. “There was nothing, it was just out of sheer generosity. ”

The K’s design is a fusion of the Sandhu Residence Center and Glass Hall, and construction plans were solidified before the donation was made, Sundy said. 

“Any new building is a major investment for the university. So a gift, even if the building is close to being built, helps the university’s financial health overall,” Sundby said. 

The K is adjacent to the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and will be available to students of all majors. 

The residence hall will open fall 2019, Sundby said, but will not be completed in time to accept early arrival move-ins, who are often students with on-campus jobs that begin before school starts. The residence hall will be completed in time for regularly scheduled arrivals, which will take place Aug. 22.