Sonora Center

The Sonora Center dorm complex is farther south of the main campus than any other place to live at the Tempe campus. What it lacks in convenience, it makes up for in dorm quality. The Sonora Center is an apartment style wrap around building with five levels. Each level has less rooms the higher up the building goes. Each room is next to one another and opens up to a walkway over looking the central grass area. Like the rooms at Adelphi, when the residents want fresh air, they can simply open the door and walk outside. There are also two windows in the front of the room, and four windows in the back (two per bedroom). While the front widows do not open, all four in the back do. All of these openings provide each room with plenty of natural lighting and fresh air.

The rooms at Sonora Center are larger than the other dorms, while the actual bedrooms may be a little smaller, Sonora is the only dorm that also has a common room that connects the two bedrooms and the bathroom. With the spaciousness of the rooms, there is plenty of places to put a TV, futon, and a Sparklet in the room comfortably. Likewise with the larger rooms, the bathrooms in Sonora are also larger than other dorms. With this larger area in the bathroom, multiple people can use the different facilities at the same time. One downside to the bathroom however, is that unlike the other dorms there is only one sink for all four residents.

Sonora shares the same problem as Adelphi with being far from the main campus, forcing the students to walk five to seven minutes to get to the closest dining hall located at Hassayampa. When the residents are not up for the walk, they can go to the Sonora Market and with M&G dollars pay for meals and snacks.

There are both pros and cons for the design of Sonora. The largest and most obvious pro for Sonora is its very large central grass courtyard. This provides the residents many recreational opportunities. Residents can be seen playing football, Frisbee and many other sports in the grass area. This is not the only place where residents can enjoy the outdoors for there are also tennis courts and a basketball court directly behind Sonora. The downside to Sonora’s wrap around designis that the residents tend to be more isolated from one another, more so than other dorms. Similar to Adelphi, this creates a division of sides, which results in many residents not knowing others on the opposite side of the complex that they are on.