BLOOMINGTON — First-year students at Indiana University are starting to move into their dorms on the Bloomington campus. But two residence halls will not house students this school year.
Foster and McNutt are under renovation because of a mold problem.
Last fall, hundreds of students reported mold-related health issues and had to be moved out of their dorms.
In April, the state budget committee approved IU's $56 million plan to replace heating, ventilation, and cooling systems in those residence halls.
"That took room for 2,300 students offline. So with that of course, we had to make some accommodations," Chuck Carney, an IU spokesperson, said. "So we started working with some off-campus apartment complexes. And Residential Programs and Services here at IU contracted with those apartment complexes to get ten-month leases for students who wanted to live through Residential Programs and Services through IU, but still needed a space to live."
The IU spokesperson also said the rate they negotiated at the off-campus apartment complexes is comparable to what students would pay living at the dorms and in some cases cheaper.
Work to fix the mold problem is expected to last until the fall 2021 semester.
