Student Housing: WSU may give up its apartments
Under a possible new land lease agreement, WSU would no longer manage apartments.
A new agreement could transfer the management of WSU’s off-campus apartments to a private company for at least 65 years. Two of the university’s nine apartment complexes would likely be demolished.
Under the terms of an agreement between WSU and American Campus Communities, a student-housing company based out of Austin, Texas, Kamiak Apartments on Merman Drive and the Terrace complex on Valley Road are slated for demolition by this time next year.
The Terrace complex was built in the late 1950s, followed by Kamiak in the early 1960s. Together, they comprise the smallest and most affordable student family housing the university has to offer, according to the Housing and Dining Web site.
Cynthea Arbour, chair of the interdepartmental committee reviewing the lease, said the university requested proposals for leasing and managing the complexes about a year ago.
Arbour said all the details of the lease agreement haven’t been worked out, but the length will be somewhere between 65 to 85 years. She declined to name the cost of the lease, saying it hasn’t been finalized. The same goes for the change in costs tenants will pay.
“(The ACC) will have definite say in the rents.” Arbour said Tuesday.
She said the plan is to build new apartments on the land that Kamiak and Terrace now occupy by fall 2011.
“The current plan is to demolish Kamiak and Terrace and replace them with 720 new beds,” she said.
Kamiak has 100 apartments with one- and two-bedroom layouts, while Terrace has 99 apartments that range from one to three bedrooms per unit.
Age is the primary factor in the decision to demolish the buildings.
“It’s because those units are so old that they lived through their useful life,” Arbour said.
Some residents expressed concerns over the plan.
Danielle Clark, a graduate student with the College of Education, a Terrace tenant and mother of one, said with this lease deal the university will be displacing the poorest families on campus.
“Tuition’s gone up, funding’s gone down. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Clark said.
She said the complexes house many exchange students and student families, who would be faced with fewer affordable housing choices.
Jason McConnell, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association, said the organization is going to explore resources that may help student tenants.
“In light of conversations about WSU leaving the apartment management business, the GPSA is exploring a number of ways which students can be placed in a better position to negotiate with landlords.” McConnell said.
In addition to the long-term lease agreement, the university also plans on selling the property it owns on the southeast corner of Colorado and Ruby streets across from Adams Mall. ACC is buying the property in a transaction that will be finished by Sept. 30, according to a memo to the WSU Board of Regents.
By Dominick Bonny for the Daily Evergreen
