Fort Collins looks ripe for new student housing as vacancies drop and rents go up.
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Student housing may be the only real estate market that’s hot in this economy that has seen financing dry up for everything from home mortgages to auto loans to large housing developments.
Just as a California company pulled the plug on a student housing project in Old Town last week, a Utah company led by the former athletic director at Brigham Young University, is coming to the forefront. It’s the fourth student-housing project going forward in the city.
Glenwood Intermountain Properties, specializing in student-housing projects in Utah, has proposed 197 units on the 700 block of West Plum Street, a half block west of Colorado State University. It is Glenwood Intermountain’s first student housing project in Colorado.
The luxury student housing apartment project – The Retreat at 1200 Plum – includes five buildings and parking garage on 2.6 acres.
It’s the latest in a series of privately funded apartments proposed to take advantage of CSU’s projected addition of 5,000 students over the next 15 years.
The project is scheduled for a review by city staff Wednesday morning, said senior planner Anne Aspen.
“We try to make sure we have the nicest product in the market and the most accessible product,” said Rondo Fehlberg, president of Glenwood Intermountain Properties, a former BYU wrestler and athletic director.
Fehlberg declined to put a price tag or delivery date on the project until it gets through the city’s approval process. “But bottom line, student enrollment is up at most universities, and as a general rule, in an economic downturn, enrollments tend to increase,” he said. “And there is definitely a need for good student housing,” Fehlberg said.
CSU enrolled its largest freshman class in the university’s history this fall bringing enrollment to more than 25,000.
With vacancy rates of less than 5 percent and CSU’s projected growth, the need for student housing could become acute in the next few years.
“Student housing is probably one of the best real estate markets we’ve seen,” said Kevin Brinkman of Brinkman Partners, which is redeveloping the former SAE fraternity house on Laurel Street into student housing and commercial space.
SAE abandoned the site two years ago after the fraternity was barred from the CSU community.
The project will house 100 students in 31 rooms and provide 8,000 square feet of commercial space.
Redevelopment is expected to begin in April or May, with occupancy in August 2010, Brinkman said.
“What we are contemplating is consistent with what Fort Collins and CSU want on the perimeter of campus to get more density of student housing close to campus to make this a much more walkable campus community,” Fehlberg said.
The market is focusing more scrutiny on most projects, but Fehlberg said it should not “prevent us from being able to secure the kind of financing we need. There’s no question that we watch and see what’s happening to other folks and it’s disappointing but not entirely surprising that other projects are being impacted.”
Rael Development Corp., Irvine, Calif., pulled the plug last week on a 279-unit student housing project on block 23 in Old Town adjacent to the Mason corridor citing development time pressure and frozen capital markets.
Block 23 is owned by developer and Realtor Mike Jensen, who also owns the smattering of rental homes on the Plum Street site that will be razed to make room for The Retreat at 1200 Plum Street.
Jensen was unavailable for comment.
Another student-housing project near the southwest corner of Prospect Road and College Avenue being developed by Alabama-based Capstone Cos. and is planned for 700 students.