Two person rooms will house 248 students inside the new Crossroads Residence Hall at Tyler Junior College. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

The new Crossroads Residence Hall about to open on the Tyler Junior College campus is “the finest residence hall really anywhere in Texas,” President Mike Metke boasted during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, which he called a historic day for the college.

The four-story $20 million, 63,000-square-foot hall, which will open to students on Aug. 17, sits on the west side of the main campus between Baxter Street and Magnolia Drive. The 248-bed residential facility will bring TJC’s on-campus population to about 1,300 out of a total enrollment of approximately 11,000.

Even though the college increased its capacity for students living on campus this year, there were 2,900 applications for dormitory accommodations and the college stopped taking applications in May, Metke said.

The president said he hopes another wing for Crossroads Residence Hall will come soon next door.

The hall, Metke said, “is an example of the best practices” and incorporates the most current thinking on residential housing. College officials studied with architects and campus focus groups as well as toured other facilities in planning for the facility.

Metke said he is proud of the design, saying it reflects the TJC campus look.

The project came in on time, under budget.

The first two floors are reserved for females and the upper two floors are coed by wing. All rooms are suite style, with two rooms sharing a bathroom.

Crossroads has wireless Internet throughout the building, storage space, meeting and gathering areas for social interaction, a full-scale Chick-Fil-A restaurant, outlets to recharge technology and a mobile app that students can download to determine when washing machines are available in the laundry room.

Construction began in April 2014.

An area coordinator who will be assisted by six resident assistants will manage the building.

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