Student Housing Business

JAN-FEB 2017

Student Housing Business is the voice of the student housing industry.

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ON-CAMPUS HOUSING January/February 2017 51 Phase two will demolish five remaining Andros buildings and adjacent support buildings, followed by construction of 900 beds. The project will be complete in June 2018 and will raise USF's total on-campus capacity to about 6,500 beds. An important piece of the USF Village is the first Publix grocery store to be built on campus land in Florida. USF negotiated a 21-year ground lease with the grocer with six five-year term extensions for a store to be built at Fletcher Avenue and North Palm Drive, which is currently unused land. "Our students' top request was to bring a grocery store to campus," Genshaft says, "so that we can create a healthy living and learn- ing environment that fully supports them in their goals and ambitions." Publix has agreed to conduct a minimum of two job fairs per year on the USF campus. The store will be complete by the end of 2017. "A very prominent theme in this overall project is the idea of the 24-hour village," says Design Collective Associate Jessica Pagan Aello. "Whether that translates vertically in one building or through a series of buildings, the trend to have mixed use in student housing has become the most common way universities are making an effort to retain students. It's about that 'wow' factor when families come on campus, and it's about showing students they have their own village where they can feel safe and have all the elements of a main street community." Pagan Aello explains the design will feature two main pedestrian promenades that traverse the primary public uses. Along these main streets, in addition to housing, will be flex classrooms, retail, dining and wellness. Smaller pathways through the footprint will allow for chance and planned interactions with campus residents. In addition to the 24-hour village concept, Pagan says that the idea of a gateway is also a defining characteristic. The Village is located at a north corner of the campus, so it will help brand the university along its property borders with the refreshed streetscape and serve as a welcoming gateway to the university. Retail is becoming a major part of new campus construction, and Design Collective principal Tom Zeigenfuss notes there is a niche market emerging for skilled retail consultants that universities hire to help them bring the right mix of tenants onto campus. Most P3s are examining inventive ways to loosen the segregated, isolat- ed design of many university campuses. "A lot of universities are coming to us because they have a mass of ills they are trying to cure, specifically they're responding to housing that created communities that were too big and lacked integration with the campus proper," Zeigenfuss says. "So they are finding that the most successful residence halls they have on campus all have a certain quality – they are usually smaller, and they are linked to the academic core. It's important for students who visit to see a more manageable community size instead of the disconnected 1960s towers that no one wants to live in." In addition to connecting students to the academic core of campus, innovative new housing is also finding ways to connect faculty and staff in the design of their buildings, whether through a residential college with on-site faculty living among students or smarter integrations of RAs and residence directors. At the University of Michigan, Hanbury completed a project at the uni- versity's East Quad that transformed obsolete buildings from the 1930s into a vibrant resident and dining facility for 830 students that includes a residential college. "Students today are digital natives," Wright says. "We find that stu- dents want everything to be current. They expect technological sophisti- cation. But they also embrace living in heritage buildings." Wright says that students today also desire transparency. They want to know what's in their food, for example, and the source of the food. So to bring those ideas to life, Hanbury built a café inside one of the renovated heritage buildings that is literally transparent. Encased in glass, it gives students the impression that they can see what is happening in the build- ing immediately. "Students want informational transparency, but they also want to see transparency," Wright says. "When you walk into a building that has not been renovated, it's very difficult to tell what's happening in the building 855.255.4181 www.universitystudentliving.com ON CAMPUS OFF CAMPUS MULTI-FAMILY MIXED-USE AFFORDABLE NEW DEVELOPMENT RE-DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT FINANCE TOGETHER, WE BUILD COMMUNITIES Leverage the advantages of an organization that has developed more than 52,000 units in 35 states. A COMPANY OF THE MICHAELS ORGANIZATION

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