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• (PHOTOS) Half of Cal Poly Humboldt’s Behemoth Student Housing Project is Set to Open This Fall

The official grand opening of the $226 million Hinarr Hu Moulik dorms (“our home” in Soulatluk), the seven-story, 964-bed, two-building complex a mile north of Cal Poly Humboldt’s campus, was marked today by speeches from university officials and politicians, including Assemblyman Chris Rogers and Senator Mike McGuire.

Students started moving in last week, and out of the 608 beds currently available, 513 are being used (just one out of the two buildings will be open until the spring semester, which will add another 356 beds). Student enrollment at CPH is up 4.1% this year, a large increase over several years of consistent 1% growth. The new dorms have increased university housing by over 50%.

Composed of apartments ranging from two to four bedrooms, student and RA Cedrik Von Breil said in an interview with the Outpost that he liked his forest view from the sixth floor and really enjoyed having a gym downstairs. The noise from adjacent Highway 101 was almost nonexistent, he said, and although some of the rooms were “small,” he said the other residents were coping with it just fine. (Von Breil later specified that “cozy” would be a more exact term.)

Speakers praised the investment Cal Poly Humboldt put into its students and the power of a college degree.

“The almost half-billion-dollar investment in Cal Poly Humboldt is the single largest non-prison investment in a rural California county in 50 years,” McGuire said. “This seven-story state-of-the-art housing complex — it is transformational… . We know this isn’t just a dorm, this isn’t just a place to sleep, but a place to establish lifelong friendships, lifelong memories, and candidly, this is a place to call home… . There is nothing like a college degree to change one’s life, and there’s nothing like a college degree from the best university system in the United States of America.”

“We know that the cost of living in California is a challenge, and we know that particularly students who are living on thin margins often have to choose between their priorities, whether or not they’re going to meet their day to day needs, or if they’re going to invest in their future,” said Rogers. “It’s a challenge that none of them should [deal with]. We are working on it, but this project represents the best of what our state can do.”

He also lauded the speed the dorms were built with.

“A year ago, my wife and I were living a couple of blocks from here, watching the construction happen — and holy crap. This went up fast.”