The University on Wednesday confirmed that Morse College will be renovated in 2009-2010, followed by Ezra Stiles College in 2010-2011, as was reported in the News last week.

The order of the renovations was dictated by logisticalfacilities constraints within the colleges, Lloyd Suttle, deputy provost for undergraduate and graduate programs, said. If Stiles were to be renovated first, the Morse dining hall — which shares kitchen space with Stiles — would not be able to stay open simultaneously, he said.

The $150 million renovation of both colleges will complete Yale’s decade-long makeover of its residence halls. Jonathan Edwards College is under renovation this year, and Calhoun College will be overhauled during the 2008-’09 academic year.

Suttle said the corridor through which dining hall deliveries and trash are transported runs underneath Stiles from the college’s shared kitchen to a loading dock on Tower Parkway across from the Ray Tompkins House, the administrative offices of the Athletics Department. If Stiles were to be closed for renovations, that passageway would not be accessible, and there would be no way to stock the Morse dining hall or dispose of its trash, Suttle said.

“It really was the only feasible option,” Suttle said.

After the renovations, he said, Morse and Stiles will feature two levels of underground space to be built under the “crescent” open space across from Payne Whitney Gymnasium. The first level will be used for student activity space, and the second for kitchen space, Suttle said. The underground spaces will be shared by Morse and Stiles, much as Pierson and Davenport colleges have shared basement facilites since their renovations, he said.

The Stiles dining hall will be able to stay open during the 2009-’10 academic year while Morse is renovated, and the new underground facilities will include a new corridor through which Morse can dispose of its trash and accept deliveries even while Stiles is under renovation the next year. The Morse renovation is budgeted at $73.1 million, while Stiles will receive $75.4 million in upgrades, adjusted for inflation, according to University budget projections.

– Thomas Kaplan