Rendering courtesy of Rohrbach Associates PC and the University of Iowa.Iowa City, Iowa — The University of Iowa will soon break ground on the $53 million West Campus Residence Hall, the first dorm constructed on campus since 1968.

Funded by residence system revenue bonds, the building will provide 501 beds to students in pods of 26 to 28 students in double rooms. Three floors of the 10-floor building will include smaller clusters of rooms. The hall will be a living-learning facility, a model that is already popular among students in Iowa's writing program as well as in the health science and engineering majors.

It will be built to silver LEED standards and will complete in spring 2015.