Prior to the construction of the South Village in 2021, Cal State LA only had student apartments for on-campus housing. Now, more students are able to call Cal State LA home.

The South Village is intended to innovate and improve the student housing experience. Some of those improvements include a new recreation room and touch-free entryways.

The recreation room is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and features a large collection of stationary bikes for student use. Many student residents, like first-year roommates Hailee Molina and Krissy Aguja, are excited about this new addition. 

“I think it will motivate a lot more students to exercise since it will be really close to where they live, and they won’t have to walk far to get there,” said Molina. 

“I think it’s good for the people like me because I know that I will have access to workout equipment,” said Aguja. “Especially since freshmen cannot have a car on campus to drive themselves to the gym, it’s good that they will have another one on campus.” 

The entryways to all of the residence towers in student housing now include touch-free motion detecting doorways. 

“I’m a big fan of these new entryways,” said second-year South Village resident Arianna Morales. “It makes it easier to bring things like food up to your room without having to move your hands to open the doors.”

First-year resident Latrell Trammell sees other benefits to having a touch-free entryway. 

“It’s very helpful since COVID-19 has been spiking really high recently,” said Trammell. “I feel like having everything touch-free keeps everything safer. It also benefits students with disabilities.” 

These new innovations are just some of the ways that student housing is trying to improve the lives of residents. Other recent improvements to student housing include two new elevators that take residents straight to campus, an ice cream bar in the dining hall and a communal kitchen with extended hours from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.