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| Newman Heights, a new student housing facility adjacent to St. Augustine University Parish in Platteville recently opened near the UW-Platteville campus in time for the new school year. (Contributed photo) | ||
PLATTEVILLE — It’s not uncommon for people helping college-aged young adults to say, “Our goal is to have people find out who they are.”
When those words come from a property management president like Bill Levy from BMOC, Inc., you know there is something special he’s talking about.
The “something special” is Newman Heights, a recently opened 144-bed student housing complex near the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Platteville campus and adjacent to St. Augustine University Parish.
Need for housing
St. Augustine Parochial Administrator Fr. John Del Priore, SJS, said the project began after he talked with UW-Platteville students who expressed a “need for a place they felt safe, a place they could flourish as Catholic students.”
He said they weren’t “comfortable” in other housing options they had on or near campus.
The eventual plan was to buy four houses that were on the same block as St. Augustine Church and then raze them, making way for a new student housing complex.
Tri North Builders in Fitchburg was contracted to design the building, made of stone, “done in a Gothic style,” said Architect Steve Harms.
“When you see it, it’s like wow,” Harms added.
Levy said a sense of “freedom” would exist at Newman Heights.
“The beautiful thing is that freedom to be able to really kind of be who you are and feel like you have the freedom
to be who you are, and you’re not going to be judged,” he said.