INDIANA — Indiana University of Pennsylvania hopes a $37 million project to overhaul its dining facilities will entice students — and alleviate crowding as more students opt for meal plans.

“We really want to be kind of a destination,” Michael Lemasters, executive director of housing, residential living and dining.

Lemasters said a 400-seat, $6.5 million project, Crimson Cafe, will include a Starbucks, a pizza eatery, and other specialty foods. It’s set to open in the fall of 2014.

The existing Folger Dining Hall will be renovated from a retail food court to an all-you-can-eat dining area including chefs at cooking stations by fall 2015. Another 450-seat dining hall is expected to be finished for the following school year.

Officials say the construction is being done because 7,000 students — a 15 percent increase — are projected to use campus meal plans in the next several years.

Student dining fees are expected to pay for the work. Between the 2011-12 and 2013-14 school years, the price of the least expensive meal plan available to all on-campus students increased 11.3 percent to $1,181 per semester.