There are 1,000 beds for students on Route 1 – all of them in the University View. But if three recent building proposals come off, that number could more than triple.
Between the 2,600 beds developers have already proposed building this semester and five other potential student-housing projects in early stages, developers seem to be betting that the need for student housing won’t dry up anytime soon and that the private sector – not the university – will fill the demand.
“[Developers] are banking on the fact that they’re gonna get their housing done before the university starts their process,” said David Daddio, a former city council candidate who writes a blog about development issues in the city, Rethink College Park.
And with so much student housing going up, some say the extra supply could keep rents down for students in the coming years.
There are many factors playing into the sudden rush toward student housing. The biggest of these is the lack of housing for students on the campus, a recent downturn in the market for other types of housing, like condo and what some call the sluggish pace the university is moving ahead with its own housing plans.
As many as 1,000 sophomores could be denied housing from the university next year and the school has a more than 1,600-person wait-list for housing, according to Doug Duncan, the university’s vice president for administrative affairs.
But the number of students looking for housing is likely far higher than the number on the university’s wait-list, observers say.
“Everyone sort of recognizes the shortage of housing,” said Mark Vogel, who is building one of the three proposals that have come before the council this year.
Recent turmoil in the housing market nation-wide has also made student housing a more attractive option.
“There’s really been a crash in the condo market,” Daddio said, “Developers might be saying ‘Well, we’re not going to make a killing on condos.'”
“The only thing that really works on U.S. 1 is student housing,” said Vogel, who is proposing a 700-bed apartment building adjacent to University View. He had planned to build a luxury hotel on the site, but the county executive wouldn’t give him the subsidy he needed to make the project economically viable.
“[Student housing] is the one thing in real estate that still works,” he said.
The lack of new dorms being planned by the university also creates a gap that developers can fill.
Although the university did recently announce plans to build a 400-bed dorm on the campus, recent plans for East Campus development didn’t include any guaranteed housing for undergraduates. When that was announced, Daddio said, developers jumped in.
But the university may be forced to do more than is already planned. State Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D – Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) has said he will introduce legislation forcing the university to build more student housing if administrators don’t come up with a plan to get 5,000 more beds on the campus.
Rosapepe has been meeting occasionally with university officials to discuss their progress and has set a tentative deadline for the end of this year to see something concrete.
Still, even without the university stepping in, some say there could be a danger of supply outpacing the demand for housing off of the campus – even if that scenario is some years down the road.
The 2,600 additional beds already proposed are equal to a little more than one-tenth of the university’s undergraduate student body and would represent a 260% increase in housing along Route 1.
Both Vogel’s proposal and Mukesh Majmudar’s proposal for 500 beds farther down on Route 1 could be completed by 2009, the developers say.
Developers Otis Warren and Steve McBride are planning a two-phase addition to University View. The first phase could be complete by fall 2010 and would contain 520 beds for students in the university’s Freshman Connection program.
The second would contain another 950 beds and could be completed four years after the first phase.
The five new developments are all in extremely early stages, according to College Park Director of Planning Terry Schum. Because of the early state of these plans, Schum said she couldn’t discuss them.
Daddio said filling all those beds will depend on whether another trend continues: more students opting to live on the campus and in the areas surrounding the school rather than commute from home.
Asked whether she thought the supply of student housing could at some point outstrip demand, Schum said, “I don’t think that’s very likely in this environment.
“What is the magic number? I don’t know,” she said.
One effect of the increase in housing that should please students is the potential of lower rent.
“It’s not going to cause the price to rise,” Daddio said of the new housing options. He said that rents may not decrease, but that an increase in supply would at least hold off future rent hikes.
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