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Cleveland Institute of Art students have been designed right into the heart of bustling Uptown, a neighborhood development project injecting new energy into Cleveland’s University Circle neighborhood.

Work is beginning on the $21 million Phase II, a seven-story residence where incoming CIA freshmen could be living as early as August 2014. The new residence hall will place students at the hub of a neighborhood that aims to leverage the creative, medical and educational energy of University Circle.

Designed by San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz, Phase II will combine a CIA residence hall with market-rate apartments. The plan makes CIA students an integral part of what journalist Keith Schneider described in the New York Times as “what amounts to a new downtown for the University Circle neighborhood on the east side of the city. “

“The location of the hall also makes CIA very attractive to students,” said Matt Smith, CIA’s director of student life and housing. “You will be able to look out of your window and see the new Museum of Contemporary Art. That’s pretty cool.”

The building also represents the first dedicated dorm for CIA students. Freshman, who are required to live on campus, have occupied a residence hall owned by Case Western Reserve University.

Designed to house 130 CIA students, each dorm space will place four students in two rooms connected by a shared workspace outfitted for art students.

“Typical desks do not make sense for the majority of our students,” said Smith. “We have been working with a group of current students to discuss the type of furniture that would be most useful to them in their first year.”

The common work area also underscores CIA’s philosophy of collaboration among students. “Having the common workroom in each suite allows for the linkages between the learning that happens in the classroom with the learning that typically occurs outside the classroom,” Smith said.

Students will have easy access to the Health Line, a Euclid Ave bus system that connects University Circle to downtown Cleveland.

The building’s side-by-side design will house students on the west end, near Ford Drive, and 43 apartments on the east. Students and renters will have separate entrances to the building and enjoy separate rooftop decks.