RIVERSIDE, CALIF.--R.D. Olson Construction has redefined what student housing is all about with its completion of an upscale high-tech dormitory near the University of California, Riverside. Designed to please even the most discriminate of tastes, the $25 million complex is home to six dormitory buildings, housing 752 one-, two- and four-bedroom suites with private baths. Of those suites, there are 212 kitchen, living and dining room, and laundry facility combinations. Central to the complex are two courtyards decorated with a trellis colonnade skirting its walls. The complex totals 287,000 square feet.

“The facility holds in contrast images of the poor starving student with today’s Internet-savvy scholar living the good life,” said Dennis Reyling, president, R. D. Olson Construction.

Each room is equipped with direct TV and high speed data transmission outlets that are networked to the university so students can have fast and easy online access. At its hub is the Student Center. Here students can find everything they need including a business center, study halls, health club, kitchen, presentation room, administrative offices, bistro and golf cart storage facility. Just outside is a pool outlined by colored, stamped concrete decking with an adjacent, Jacuzzi and inset barbeque pit for those weary students who find time to relax.  The dormitories open in August 2001.

R. D. Olson Construction was founded in 1979 by Robert Olson. The company has since built such well-known establishments as the Marriott Residence Inn, Irvine; Laguna Woods Town Center, Laguna Woods; and Northpark Plaza, Irvine. Current projects include Morton’s Steakhouse, Santa Ana, Calif. and Honolulu, Hawaii; Homewood Suites and Hilton Garden Inn, a two-hotel resort in San Diego and renovation of the Monarch Beach Resort Clubhouse and Bay Club, Dana Point, Calif. R. D. Olson Construction is the twelfth largest company of its kind in Orange County with its corporate office in Irvine, Calif.