For some students, campus living means off-campus housing.
That notion, coupled with universities’ desire to grow, has helped fuel residential rental markets from Storrs to New Haven. The incoming freshmen arriving this fall at the University of Connecticut and Yale University could see the completion, or near completion, of major new residential rental projects before they graduate.
Across from UConn’s main campus, a mixed-use project including up to 800 residential units – 200 to 300 of which would be rentals – is planned for development. Construction is slated to begin in 2008, with a projected completion date in 2014.
“For living close to campus, [the residential rental market] really is pretty tight,” said Richard Veilleux, UConn spokesman. “There has been some interest by developers in building [additional rental units]. We certainly could support it.”
In addition to the housing units, plans for the Storrs Center development include between 150,000 and 200,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space; between 40,000 and 75,000 square feet for office space; between 5,000 and 25,000 square feet of civic and community space; and approximately 30 acres preserved for open space and conservation. Leyland Alliance LLC of Tuxedo, N.Y. is the master developer for the project.
With an undergraduate student body of about 16,000, Veilleux estimates 5,000 UConn students live off campus.
“We’ve been holding the freshmen class size down for the past five years,” Veilleux said. During that time, the freshman class size has ranged between 3,200 and 3,250, he said.
David Byers, a Realtor with Prudential Connecticut Realty’s Vernon office, agreed the housing space has been tight at UConn.
“They’re always putting some overflow students up at the Nathan Hale Inn,” Byers said. “They do run out of space there. [Storrs Center] is something that will certainly help and change things a lot.”
In the meantime, students searching for housing are turning to neighboring towns.
“Some are heading to Vernon and Manchester,” Byers said. “There you have a steady flow of available units.”
‘More Appealing’ Market
Like Storrs, New Haven has its eyes on a mixed-used development that will add hundreds of residential units.
“It’s the first substantial de novo construction of residential rental units in some time,” said Michael Morand, associate vice president for the New Haven and state offices at Yale.
Plans for the 400,000-square-foot, $165 million project by Fairfield-based developer Becker and Becker Assoc. include 400 residential units, with 50 tagged as affordable housing; retail outlets, including a full-service grocery store; and 500 on-site parking spaces. Work is scheduled to begin later this year, with the housing coming to market in two or three years.
Including undergraduates, graduate and professional students, Yale’s student body is around 11,000, Morand said. About half of those students live off campus, he said. The vast majority of students living off campus are graduate or professional students, he added.
While New Haven waits to see the impact of the new 400-unit construction project, the city has been seeing its supply of housing increase as new uses are found for older buildings.
“The city has seen a pretty significant increase in [Class B office to residential] conversions,” Morand said.
Another type of conversion has created another off-campus living option.
The Condominiums at Center Court in New Haven were converted from apartments three years ago, said Evelyn Lewis-Wilson, a Realtor with Prudential Connecticut Realty in New Haven. The 12-story, 74-unit building has a mix of 30 percent investor owners, and 70 percent owner-occupied tenants, she said.
“We do end up with a lot of Yale students,” Lewis-Wilson said. While some rent from the spaces owned by investors, other parents are opting to pay around $80,000 for a studio-style condo for their son or daughter attending Yale, she said.
“At the end [of school], they would have a nice investment,” Lewis-Wilson said. But for people who don’t want to buy, she added, “the soft housing market is making the rental market more appealing.”
People trying to sell condos and houses can not always afford to have those properties just sit on the market, especially if they have already moved into another home, Lewis-Wilson said. Most people can not afford to pay a mortgage or rent on two different places, she said.
For those sellers, “they’re willing to rent that unit,” Lewis-Wilson said. “So I think we now have more inventory for rentals.”
Studios in downtown New Haven rent for around $800 to $900 a month, she said.
A Web site listing off-campus housing in Storrs shows both an efficiency-style apartment and a loft unit in the same price range. The same site includes listings that range from a $300-a-month room to a $2,100-per-month house.
Of course, both schools have their own student housing options.
UConn has traditional-style dormitories for freshmen, two-bedroom suite-style units for upperclassmen, as well as two apartment complexes that are predominantly four-bedroom units. Yale has its 12 residential colleges, as well as market-rate studio apartments, one- to four-bedroom apartments, townhouses and single-family homes bordering the campus.
While both Storrs and New Haven may seem to have had a sudden surge in population with the start of the school year, it does not necessarily mean that the residential vacancy rates have changed since the summer.
“Virtually all of the rentals are done with 12-month leases,” Morand said. “So the landlords see the income year-round.”
Veilleux said the same thing happens in Storrs.
“A lot of kids will sublet [in the summer],” Veilleux said. “Others will stay here and get a job locally or in the surrounding towns.”
