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The Groovy UV is getting a makeover.

In a recent proposal to the board of trustees, a housing masterplan was introduced that will tear down, renovate, repurpose and build new residential halls on the University of Vermont campus.

The plan includes expanding the MAT residential halls by nearly two-fold, removing the ÒshoeboxesÓ on Central Campus and replacing them with new ones and repurposing Trinity Campus for Graduate students.

Additionally, more community spaces within the already existing residential halls will be created along with the specification of first-year residential areas.

The masterplan is a huge step for the UVM community but an absolutely necessary one that will only serve to improve the physical campus as well as student experience.

First of all, UVM is desperately in need of more and better residential halls.

The shoeboxes are a great location to live on campus, but they look like some prison donated a few rows of cells and we fashioned them into semi-livable spaces, charging thousands of dollars for students to live in them.

Second of all, who wants to live on Trinity? No one, thatÕs who.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the masterplan will help students of any year have the most enjoyable experience possible.

The plan is to make distinct certain residential areas on campus for first-year students and upperclassmen.

For first-years, itÕs necessary to be in the heart of campusÑon Central and AthleticÑto become accustomed to campus and take advantage of campus events which are, admittedly, far less attractive to upperclassmen.

Whereas upperclassmen seem to prefer Redstone. By renovating residential halls on Redstone while supplying more community spaces, social and general experience will only improve.

And this MAT expansion will give us a nice new building at the very start of campus.

So when prospective students coming to visit UVM get off the highway, the first thing they will see is a band new residential hall that will notÑand count this as an official finger-crossingÑbe designed by the architects over at the Redstone Lofts.