University Student Housing Gets Needed Facelift

The collaboration led to the construction of a six-story residential building, which would anchor several planned surrounding structures. Between 2014 and 2018, seven buildings comprising more than 450,000 sq. ft. and 1500 wall panels were constructed in three phases.

These were to be built by the team of StoPanel Technology, its affiliate, Jersey Panel Corp, and Nexus Properties, the developer and general contractor for the project. In addition to the tight schedule, StoPanel was used to achieve a highly detailed exterior look, including three contrasting finish materials—brick, cast stone and texture. Prefabricated panels of StoPanel Brick ci and StoPanel Classic ci were used to create these finishes while StoPanel Backup was used on the ground floor as brick veneer was field installed. As is custom with every StoPanel, the fluid applied air and moisture barrier, StoGuard, was installed on every panel prior to the cladding being installed in Jersey Panel’s prefabrication facility.The final touch was Stolit Lotusan, an engineered, super-hydrophobic and patented exterior textured finish designed to resist dirt pick-up and keep the walls clean with its known self-cleaning effect.

“The beauty of prefab is that the exterior goes up quickly,” said Art Baruffi Jr., VP project management for Jersey Panel, “And the interior can get started at almost the same time.” The average installation, he reports, was ten panels a day, with the buildings ranging in size from about 65 to 500 panels. “There was no need for all of the different trades you’d normally see in the field since the walls were ready to go up when they arrived, and we worked with a crew of just about five or six people to install them,” said Baruffi.