Bellevue College is taking its first steps to creating student housing on campus, with plans of opening a 350-room dormitory in the fall of 2018.

A feasibility study was conducted by the college to determine how to provide student housing and completed in October.

“That told us where to build it it, how many beds to build and how to pay for it,” said Ray White, Bellevue College’s vice president of administrative services. “We’ve got quite a few architects interested in it.”

The 4-story dormitory will be constructed where a service parking lot is now, near Bellevue College’s baseball field at the north end of the campus, and is the first of three development phases to achieve 1,100 rooms for students in the next 10 years. The second and third phases of housing will be constructed heading south from where the first dormitory is to be constructed, White said. The first phase is expected to break ground in spring 2016.

Bellevue College expects to construct its first phase of student housing — estimated at $44 million — through debt funding using state-issued bonds. White said the first dormitory will be apartment-style, with a mix of one- to four-bedroom suites that include cooking facilities.

“In the future phases we’ll have a dining hall put it,” he said.

The college has long-term goals of becoming a four-year institution, currently offering some such programs, White said, but that only accounts for about 2 percent of enrollment now. While many students still commute to Bellevue College from outside communities, White said there are about 12,000 full-time equivalent students and a strong number who need affordable student housing options.

“I think we’re going to see the demand is high and they’ll go very quickly,” White said of the first dorm to be constructed, adding of the college’s housing plans, “It’s consistent with where the college is going, not just with the four-year program, but we’re growing our international program.”