Image courtesy of Miller Dyer Spears

Boston University’s trio of dorms known as Warren Towers is showing its age in an era where many college housing projects include amenities worthy of luxury condominium complexes.

The university is preparing to update the city’s largest dorm complex which houses 1,800 undergraduates.

Aging building systems and accessibility shortcomings prompted the school to prepare a series of upgrades taking place over the next four years. The project will add air conditioning to the 59-year-old Commonwealth Avenue complex for the first time, Boston University said in a filing with the Boston Planning & Development Agency.

Dorm rooms will be modernized and the buildings’ capacity will be expanded by nine beds. An all-electric HVAC system will use air-to-water heat pumps backed up by electric boilers in extreme cold.

The tan brick facades will be updated with composite metal paneling and color accents, and repairs are planned for deteriorating sections of the exterior.

Boston-based Miller Dyer Spears, which previously designed the 2018 renovations of Boston University’s Myles Standish Residence Hall, is the project architect, and Shawmut Design and Construction will be the construction manager.

The project will take place in three phases between December 2024 and August 2028, with students relocated to BU’s Fenway Campus during construction at each building.