HRL to rent off-campus for upperclassmen

With an unprecedented amount of freshmen coming to Seattle University next fall, Housing and Residence Life confirmed that it will be leasing an off-campus residence to accommodate as many students as necessary.

The building will most likely be an apartment complex, according to Tim Albert, assistant director of HRL, and will be offered to seniors and juniors who are currently in the Murphy Apartments or Logan Court townhouses.

The on-campus spaces vacated by the seniors and juniors who choose to accept the off-campus housing option would be offered to sophomores signed up to live in Campion, Bellarmine or Xavier residence halls.

"That way we'll sort of have the net benefit of getting more freshmen in the residence halls while also giving sophomores more options," Albert said. The locations under review have yet to be announced. Housing officials said the properties will not be more than one or two blocks away from campus.

"All off-campus options we're looking at are within a two-to-five minute walk of campus," said Romando Nash, director of Housing.

"We're in probably the last stages before Ron Smith [vice president of finance and business affairs] signs off on it."

Housing wants to assure students the locations are close enough to the university that residents are able to walk to class and Public Safety officers can patrol at the location.

The locations currently under review are close enough to campus that some students and parents have often assumed Seattle U already owns them.  

"We'll have parents of students in those apartments call and say, ‘Hey my student can't get this fixed or needs this,' and we'll say ‘We don't actually own those,'" Albert said.

HRL aims to lease out a large group of apartments in a single building. Like the Murphy Apartments and other residence halls, Housing will furnish the apartments with beds and dressers so students won't have to worry about purchasing their own furniture. 

HRL is aiming to make the cost of the new off-campus housing the same as or slightly less than a Murphy Apartment, which currently range from $3,022 to $3,453 per quarter, depending on size. No students will be forced to live in the new off-campus housing; the apartments will be available on a voluntary basis. Despite this, HRL is not worried that the new location will be empty.  

"I think a lot of seniors would probably jump at the opportunity to live in off-campus apartments," Albert said. "I don't think getting people to move there is going to be an issue."  

While leasing off-campus sites is a short-term solution to the problem, housing is also looking at long term solutions. 

"The issue is that while we are dealing with our largest freshman class now, they then become our biggest sophomore class, and then our biggest junior class and so on," Albert said. 

While the Douglas—a student residence on 12th Avenue and Cherry Street slated to open in fall 2011—will relieve some of the space issues by providing 260 student beds, there will still most likely be a crunch, according to HRL.

"By leasing off-campus apartments now, we are building a relationship with these [owners]," said Albert. "We may say we need 30 apartments this year, but then maybe down the line we'll need more. They'll be more likely to do that for us because of the relationship we've built up with them."  

In addition to leasing off-campus sites, HRL plans to put three students in many double rooms next year, as well as turning most lounges into quadruple-occupancy rooms. 

"That's something this year's freshmen haven't experienced too much, but two years ago it was pretty common," Albert said. "I think we have an advantage to other schools actually because our rooms are larger than rooms they have tripled up at UW." 

The number  of triples is expected to be higher than in fall 2008, when 91 additional triples were added into the system to accommodate that year's large incoming freshman class. 

Kelton may be reached at ksears@su-spectator.com