Residents of the University View apartment buildings will begin seeing exterior and interior renovations as early as next year, according to a property official.
Greystar Real Estate Partners purchased the property, which consists of two separate buildings known as the View I and the View II, on Sept. 15, Cliff Chandler, a managing director for Greystar, wrote in an email. The company has also partnered with Rockpoint Group, a private real estate equity firm, to upgrade the building’s exterior and interior facilities, he added.
“[This] Partnership plans to renovate both the unit interiors and common area amenity spaces throughout the Property and deliver a new, updated offering in response to students’ demand for highly-amenitized residential communities,” Chandler wrote.
The 16-story View I was completed in 2005, and the additional building, a 12-story View II, was finished in 2010, according to Clark Construction’s website. However, new student housing developments such as the Landmark, which started leasing in fall 2015, and Terrapin Row, which began leasing this fall, are promoting more investment into this community, said Ken Ulman, the chief economic development strategist for the University of Maryland’s College Park Foundation.
“When you have a thriving area, you have folks buying existing properties that need investments,” Ulman said. “I think it does indicate with the new units that have come online … folks do need to continue to invest in their properties, [and] market pressures [are] forcing property owners to invest and improve.”
Some unit improvements include wood-style plank flooring, new countertops, stainless steel appliances, updated furniture packages and “significant enhancements to the common areas/amenity spaces and conversion of the existing pool area into a resort-style amenity,” according to an article from MultifamilyBiz.
These upgrades will be made “as soon as possible,” Chandler wrote, “while minimizing any disruption or inconvenience to our current student residents.”
These improvements come a little late for juniormechanical engineering major Kyle Thibeault, who said the upgrades are “definitely necessary.” Thibeault lived in The View last year during his sophomore year at this university.
“The View versus the Landmark … all the furniture and appliances in The View were clearly from the ’90s or early 2000s; the Landmark [is] really modern, whereas The View was pretty traditional,” Thibeault said.
If he didn’t have a prior housing commitment, Thibeault said he would have lived in either Terrapin Row or the Landmark, because they are both “way nicer, and way more people live there because of that.”
Although Ulman said he doesn’t think this new acquisition of The View buildings will drastically affect the student housing market, he’s glad to see improvements and investments going along with the Greater College Park initiative in that area of the city.
“One of the reasons they acquired The View is that they’re really very excited about all the energy of the Greater College Park,” Ulman said. “They love the proximity to The Hotel, the Innovation District around The Hotel … that area around The Varsity and The View can feel a bit isolated from downtown, but all the activity in that area is really exciting to them.”
The overall development and growth around this university also appealed to Greystar when the company purchased this property, Chandler wrote.
“[This] Partnership was attracted to the strong supply and demand dynamics in the market and continued enrollment growth at the University,” Chandler wrote. “In addition, the transaction provides Greystar a further opportunity to leverage its Student Living Platform’s history of managing assets in College Park.”
