[media-credit name=’Brian Faust’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Construction of the new Dayton Street dormitory continues to be a work in progress in Madison, officials determined Monday. Joint Southeast Campus Area Committee members met to better visualize the new and upcoming addition to the dorm community during a meeting Monday night.

Members stressed the timeline for the approval of the Dayton Street residence hall plan is fast approaching. The student approval meeting is scheduled for Dec. 9 at 6:30 p.m. in Gordon Commons.

“We want the students’ input on this,” Paul Evans, director of University Housing, said. “We have made a plan that we think will best accommodate their needs and we want to make sure we have covered all angles.”

The plan is designed to connect the existing southeast residence halls with the new Dayton Street and Park Street dorms. The current location of Ogg Hall will become basketball courts and sand volleyball courts following its destruction.

“We wanted to make this the lowest scale possible,” architect Del Wilson said. “The point of this proposal is not designed around building another high-rise downtown.”

No decision was reached Monday night as to the finality of the Dayton Street residence hall plan, but the reaction to the most recent draft appeared optimistic.

“My first impression of the Dayton Street plan was always positive,” Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said. “I have always been a big supporter of the East Campus mall.”

The proposed dorm boasts 600-bed capacity, semi-private bathrooms and enlarged space for moped and bike parking. It is expected the 200 bike-parking spots will help alleviate moped congestion, even though scooter parking is not directly factored into the plan.

“It seems like a bad idea to not figure out the moped parking,” Verveer said. “Mopeds on this campus are a growing problem.”

Despite the concern of vehicle parking, one of the bigger issues for planners proved to be pedestrian circulation. The proposed plan includes a bigger mall area and less open concrete space.

“We want to get rid of the concrete spaces completely and put green spaces that can accommodate cars two times a year,” Peter Schaudt of Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture said.

Schaudt also said safety is a major concern, considering Dayton Street is hilly and not completely straight. Currently there are no plans to create a pedestrian alley on Dayton Street similar to the newly created Johnson Street pedestrian alley.

“The pedestrian walkway is the city’s call,” Verveer said. ” But I think that it is unrealistic to think that students will walk to the corner to cross the street.”

Although the approval of the Dayton Street dorms nears, committee members are still ironing out unresolved issues.

“The university has already approved it,” Wilson said. “Now all we need is the state to approve the plan in January.”