Posted on Nov 7, 2004
Vice Adm. John Ryan doesn't see the sense of paying high prices for a temporary apartment when there's plenty of dorm space available. Ryan, president of the state University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx, took over earlier this year as interim president of the state University at Albany.
Three or four nights a week, Ryan lives in a room in Empire Commons, the university's new $60 million apartment-style complex. The rent money saved could be better spent on student scholarships or faculty salaries, Ryan said.
Designed to give students an alternative to living off campus, the apartments feature private bathrooms, high-speed Internet access and cable, and offer access to a fitness center and other amenities.
The students especially like that each apartment has a washer and dryer, Ryan said.
Empire Commons, sometimes called “the pumpkin patch” for its bright orange color, represents a growing trend in student housing. Colleges are finding ways to accommodate students' desire for more room and independence even as they want a strong sense of community.
Empire Commons was developed by the United Group of Cos. Inc. in Albany, a real estate development and management company. The United Group also developed and manages the University Heights student apartments, which serve students from Sage College of Albany, the Albany College of Pharmacy, Albany Medical College and Albany Law School.
Having a private developer build, and sometimes manage, student housing is attractive to many colleges because it can give a project access to additional financing and cut through red tape, said Jeff Smetana, United Group's executive vice president.
Despite the success of Empire Commons, this model of student housing development is a hard sell to other SUNY schools, Smetana said. Most campuses are on state-owned land, making it hard to bring a private developer into the process.
A good compromise
Student housing isn't a make-or-break issue when families are choosing a college, but it does play a role in the decision, said Laurie Garafola, UAlbany's director of residence life. Colleges are upgrading existing housing and building new apartments designed to meet changing student needs.
Though many first-year students like the camaraderie of traditional dorms, the novelty of group living often wears off quickly. Older students typically want the privacy of their own rooms, bathrooms and kitchens. Additionally, students in all kinds of housing want the infrastructure to support computers, microwaves, televisions and other electronics.
About 60 percent of UAlbany's 11,000 undergrads live on campus. The number of upperclassmen who have stayed in campus housing has grown since Empire Commons opened two years ago. Apartment-style housing is a good compromise: parents want their kids to be safe on campus, and students want the feeling of living on their own, Garafola said.
Many colleges seek to increase the number of students living on campus to promote a sense of community and foster collaboration among students and with faculty.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy has spent $18 million over the past three years upgrading its student housing, including increasing the number of bathrooms and lounge space, but especially focusing on safety systems, aesthetics and technology, said Claude Rounds, the college's vice president of administration.
The renovations have paid off, with more undergrads living on campus and with RPI recently topping Forbes' nationwide list of the 25 “most connected campuses.”
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs will spend around $25 million on a 380-bed apartment-style dorm, with the goal of increasing on-campus living from 70 percent to 90 percent of its 2,150 students. The college will begin major construction next year and expects the new dorm to open in September 2006.
While students like the independence of living on their own, they also appreciate the convenience of having the school as a landlord, said Pat Oles, Skidmore's dean of student affairs. Having on-campus housing spares students the hassle of setting up cable and other utilities and makes it easier to arrange things like taking a semester abroad.
Union College in Schenectady, which recently converted a former Ramada Inn into apartment-style student housing, is trying a different kind of housing program.
The Minerva Houses are part of a residential, academic and social program. Each of the seven Minerva houses holds between 24 and 46 students, a fraction of Union's student body, but every student is assigned to a house. The houses include classroom space and put together social events with the goal of “blurring the lines between social and academic life,” said Tom McEvoy, Union's dean of residential life.
Off-campus living
Many students decide where to live based on where their friends live, but dollars and convenience are also a factor.
Delicia Davis, a 19-year-old sophomore communications major at UAlbany, lived in one of the high-rise dorms last year and moved to another dorm this year because the rooms are larger.
“Dorm life is something I've always wanted,” she said.
She is considering changing schools next year to be closer to home in New York City, but if she stays, she doubts she will move into Empire Commons.
The apartment-style complex costs $7,172 for a single room for 12 months, compared to the regular two-person dorms, which cost $4,560 per student for the academic year.
It doesn't make sense to pay the extra money when a dorm is good enough, Davis said.
Lindsay Pirozzi, a 20-year-old psychology major living on campus this year, is willing to pay for privacy. She paid the total cost for what would have been a two-person dorm.
“I like my space, maybe because I'm an only child,” Pirozzi said.
She likely will move off campus next year with friends, but if not, she'll consider Empire Commons.
If Pirozzi finds herself looking for off-campus housing, she will get some help from the school. Colleges are not responsible for off-campus housing, but typically they try to help match students and landlords.
Colleges want their students to be safe and have a good experience renting, said Chris Oertel, director of residence life for The College of Saint Rose in Albany. The college has put together a guide to off-campus living that covers the basics: average rents, signing a lease, making agreements with roommates and living independently.
Saint Rose is also working with an outside vendor to provide apartment listings– www.csr.och101.com–which students can use to find a place to live and to locate a roommate. The Web site went up in the last couple of weeks and landlords and students are still discovering it, but Oertel expects that by January it will be a viable way to find housing.
Unlike college towns like Ithaca, students don't dominate the local rental property market, said Jesse Holland, president of real estate firm Sunrise Management and Consulting in Latham. Students tend to congregate in a few areas, usually near campus and on a bus line, and they generally prefer private landlords to apartment complexes.
Still, changes in student housing on a college campus can have a significant impact on the local rental market. For example, in Saratoga Springs, Skidmore's planned new student housing will be good for a community that has a shortage of affordable housing, said Oles, the college's dean of student affairs. As students move back on campus, it will free up apartments in the city, easing the housing crunch.
Investing in rental housing can be a good long-term plan, but it is not a get-rich-quick scheme, said Albany resident Jasen Smith, who owns three buildings in Albany that he rents to students. Smith, a real estate agent who graduated from UAlbany four years ago, started planning to invest in rental housing when he was still a student.
Rather than maximizing the immediate return from his buildings, his goal is to reinvest in the properties, providing students with a nice place to live. Smith figures he will see most of the return from his investments when he sells the buildings.
Because he does a lot of the repair and maintenance on his buildings, Smith has a good relationship with his tenants, which encourages them to respect the space.
For UAlbany interim president John Ryan, who lived in a mansion when he was superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and in much tighter quarters on aircraft carriers, the two-bedroom dorm room is working out fine. His wife, Diane, who sometimes comes to visit from their home in White Plains, Westchester County, says it helps that he's a bit hard of hearing from 35 years of flying airplanes.
Except for the the art on the walls, pieces from the university's collection, and the occasional visits from his dog, Maggie, Ryan's Empire Commons room looks little different from any of the students' rooms. The full-size refrigerator is mainly stocked with beer and ice cream, and a laptop sits ready to go on the bedroom desk.
Despite keeping different hours than most of his student neighbors do–in bed by midnight, up for a run at 5 a.m.–Ryan is enjoying his campus quarters
“I'm in the culture 24/7,” he said.
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