Construction for the multimillion dollar renovation of Grant Tower C is expected to begin in February 2010 and finish sometime in May 2011.

The Board of Trustees approved a budget of $14.85 million at their meeting on Thursday. Eddie Williams, executive vice president of finance and facilities and chief of operations, said that amount is coming from the reserves of the revenue bond fees.

“We do our best to get our work done through our reserves that we build up over the years,” Williams said. The revenue bond fees are used to support buildings on campus that were built with these bonds. Currently, the fees support the Holmes Student Center, the Campus

Recreation Center, the Chick Evans Field House, Huskie Stadium and the Convocation Center.

Williams said he does not anticipate any financial impact on the students for the Grant Tower C renovations. He could not say the same, however, for the other aspects of the renovation.

Jeffrey Daurer, director of capital budget and space planning for the department of finance and facilities, said renovations on the other towers will begin once Tower C is finished and will proceed one at a time.

“We have a commitment to provide housing to the freshmen,” Daurer said. Daurer did not give a timeline for the completion of the entire project and also stated that any projections now would be just a guess and “not a valuable piece of information at this point.”

The lobby will be renovated similar to Stevenson’s, so students can walk from one tower to the other without having to go into the basement or go outside, as students do now. There will also be a food court in the center. The rooms, however, will not be the same as Stevenson’s. Daurer described them as being “expanded doubles” as opposed to the suites in Stevenson, and they will be bigger than the rooms in Douglas and Neptune.

The expanded rooms, however, will decrease the number of students living in each tower. At the Board of Trustees meeting, Kelly Wesener, assistant vice president of student services, said the number of students living in the towers will reduce from 500 to 400.

Daurer expressed confidence and optimism in the project, stating that renovation could move faster than expected and that Tower C will be a learning curve for the university.

“This is an exciting time for the students,” Daurer said.