Construction students build duplex for Housing Authority

This archived article was written by: Andrew Stilson

Carbon County Housing Authority is using the talent of the College of Eastern Utah’s 22 high school and 8 college students to construct an apartment duplex at 300 north and 400 East in Price. The students are part of Lewis Stilson’s building construction program which began work on the complex fall semester.
“We have an agreement with Carbon County Housing Authority and they furnished the building lot, financed the construction loan and will take it when it’s done,” Stilson said.
“The college doesn’t have to worry about financing or worry about selling it when it’s done and worry about who the market is and where the interest rates are … This is actually going to be a duplex, there will be an apartment on each side,” Stilson said.
“Each apartment contains an upper level a main level and an unfinished basement that can be finished later on if that is what the Housing Authority decides,” Stilson added.
“We were going to build a full basement but when we dug for the footers, we hit water. We were forced to raise the level of the basement and that made the duplex a split entry. Because most of the basement is above ground, it added four feet to the height of the complex,” Stilson said.
The students have already been working on it for a few months and say that it will probably be two years before the duplex is finished. “We will probably be a full two years because we will let the students finish the sheetrock and finish most everything they can,” Stilson said.
“Because of class schedules, not all of the 30 students are building the duplex at one time. The high school students have other classes at Carbon and some of the college students are also taking classes on campus,” Stilson said.
No dollar amount has been figured on how much the apartment duplex will cost to build. “I would have to sit down and figure this one out,” Stilson said.
The Housing Authority will pay for everything up to and including landscaping.
The apartment duplex is not open to just anyone. People will have to be qualified to be on housing within the Carbon County Housing Authority. CCHA deals with low income families and people with disabilities.
Stilson explained that he and his students have built houses other than this apartment duplex. He explained that he and his students have built a few others including one at Circle K subdivision, one on 300 East and the Aaron Jones Complex. “There was a house on 300 East that was in pretty bad shape and they had us fix it up for them,” Stilson said.