Fewer options will be available to students who plan to live on campus when this spring’s housing lottery rolls around. The Pennsylvania House will be removed from the University’s campus housing system and Madison Hall will be converted into a freshman residence hall.

The apartment building on Pennsylvania Avenue housed approximately 50 students, a move by the University to handle the housing needs caused by a record number of incoming freshmen last fall.

According to Paul Barkett, assistant director of the Community Living and Learning Center, one less residence hall next year will not pose a problem for students who wish to live on campus. He said approximately 100 beds now are open in residence halls, although no rooms are entirely vacant.

The projected size of next year’s student body is not large enough to require the relatively small number of spaces the Pennsylvania House provides, Barkett said. New Hall, which opened to students last fall, will alleviate many of the housing problems that have occurred in recent years.

In addition, Madison Hall is set to become the fourth freshman residence hall next fall.

The additional freshman residence hall is being added to “build freshman communities,” Barkett said. Currently, Thurston, Adams and Crawford halls house only freshmen.

CLLC was asked to find accommodations for 1,700 new freshmen next year, Barkett said. All freshmen, except older students, basketball players and other students with special circumstances, will live in the four freshman residence halls.

Barkett said he does not have the information to determine whether the Pennsylvania House will be used again in future years if the need arises. He also said he could not predict whether the four residence halls will remain all-freshmen permanently.

“It depends on what the demand will be,” Barkett said. “I don’t have a way of knowing what the freshman class will look like two years from now.”