The University of Texas Marine Science Institute is pleased to announce the start and groundbreaking for our student housing project—the first since 1970. We want to thank Representative Todd Hunter, The University of Texas at Austin and the UT Board of Regents for their support of this project.
Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on The University of Texas Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) and left no corner of the UTMSI campus untouched; however, one of the most noticeable impacts was to student housing. UTMSI has long maintained subsidized housing for our graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and undergraduate students. The University of Texas at Austin made a commitment to fund and replace the housing destroyed by Hurricane Harvey.
To further compound the problem, the City of Port Aransas, Texas, and UTMSI were impacted by back-to-back disasters when the COVID-19 global pandemic hit. COVID-19 caused all construction to halt or experience an extreme slow-down and labor shortages, reduced availability of resources, and increased costs of construction materials impacted the student housing project. With help from State Representative Todd Hunter, UTMSI secured resources to bridge the funding gap that emerged and allow for the project to get underway.
The groundbreaking is the first step to constructing a housing complex that will support 34 graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and undergraduate students with university housing. The complex will include 14 units total with three single units, five double units, four duplex units, one ADA single unit, and one ADA duplex unit. The project will take approximately two years to complete.
The project was designed by Turner Ramirez Architects from Corpus Christi, Texas, and is being constructed by Geofill Construction from Schertz, Texas.
