The Morning Sun (http://www.themorningsun.com),Serving Serving Isabella County, MI.
Proposals for more student housing raise concerns
By MARK RANZENBERGER/@ranzenberger
Sunday, February 24,2013
Proposals that could add more than 1,500 additional bedrooms to the Mt. Pleasant area’s stock of student housing are raising concerns
about the fallout from an overbuilt market.
“There is concern about oversaturating this market,” said Lansing attorney Leigh Hansmann, who represents the owners of The Village at
Bluegrass, a popular, high-end complex in Union Township. “Look at the community as a whole, and look at what the highest and best use
(of the land) is.”
One expansion of an existing complex and three new developments have been proposed for the city of Mt. Pleasant and Union Township.
The expansion is of Copper Beech Townhomes on Bluegrass Road east of the massive Union Commons shopping complex. That has been
approved, and construction is to begin this spring.
Copper Beech plans to add 256 bedrooms in 11 buildings on 10 acres of land south of the existing complex.
The other proposals are in the early stages, and it’s not clear if they will be built, or even approved.
In the city, developer Phil Seybert is proposal a four-story high-rise to be built east of the current Winchester Towers senior citizens
housing development on Broomfield Street. He hasn’t made a timetable public, but received a cautious go-ahead from city planners to
explore the project further.
NewGrass LLC, owners of the Tallgrass complex of apartments and offices on Broomfield, now has requested that 26 acres of vacant land
on Sweeney Road between Broomfield and Bluegrass be rezoned to permit a student housing complex. The local partnership hopes to sell
the land to New York-based Park7 Group.
“It would be the top of the market,” said Paul Levine of Park7 Group, which owns and operates student housing in many college towns
across the country. He said the complex would house 700 to 750 students. Levine also is part owner of Copper Beech.
In addition, Charlotte, N.C.-based Campus Crest Communities wants to build a complex on 15 acres of vacant land near Isabella Road
The planned addition of 256 bedrooms to the
Copper Beech Townhomes complex on
Bluegrass Road in Union Township is just the
first of several proposal that could add around
1,500 bedrooms to the stock of student housing
around Central Michigan between Bluegrass and Broomfield.
“About 500 to 600 bedrooms would fit on the site,” said Tim Bebee of Mt. Pleasant-based Central Michigan Survey & Development,
which is doing the engineering work on the proposed project.
Union Township planners have recommended that the township board approve the rezoning for both projects. Planning commissioners
pointed out that the projects fit the township’s master plan, would fit with zoning principles, and, they say, would be supported by adequate
infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer.
Central Michigan University itself currently is building a $28.5 million project with 94 apartments for graduate students on Bellows Street
at the north end of campus.
The new housing proposals come as CMU is projecting that attracting on-campus students may be more difficult in the future. Central
Michigan has traditionally attracted mainly students from Michigan, and the number of students graduating from Michigan high schools is
expected to drop substantially over the next few years, according to Shawn Holtgreive, CMU’s executive director of campus living and a
member of the Mt. Pleasant Planning Commission.
CMU is attempting to recruit more students from both in-state and out of state, but it’s not clear how successful those efforts will be.
That doesn’t concern the developers of the proposed projects.
“This is a market we’ve looked at a lot,” said Alex Eyssen, director of development for Campus Crest. “We’re confident in the growth of
the university. We’ve done our homework.”
Park7 Group’s Levine also said he believes Central Michigan and Mt. Pleasant will continue to grow, despite being in the economically
troubled state of Michigan.
“All the signs and signals we look at to vet out sites and markets are here,” he said.
The concern is that the new, high-quality housing will draw potential tenants away from existing complexes, which would then deteriorate.
Township zoning administrator Woody Woodruff said Union Township began its rental inspection program to combat housing
deterioration, which already had become an issue in some of the oldest complexes. Some of them are now nearly 50 years old, and were
built cheaply to begin with.
Township Planning Commission Chairman Phil Squatrito said owners of existing properties would have to get better in order to compete.
“That kind of housecleaning is going to have to take place,” he said. He pointed to major redevelopment efforts already under way on Main
and Washington streets in the city, where many older, run-down rooming houses are being replaced with new student homes.
The latest project in the city would redevelop a block of Washington Street, giving the existing Washington Village apartments a facelift,
and replacing several older houses with new, visually appealing student homes.
“It’s not often you get to redevelop the whole side of one block,” said builder Joe Olivieri, who is building the complex for property owner
United Apartments, the area’s largest landlord. Washington Village itself is only about 10 years old, but the landlord needs to make it
appealing to student renters with more choices.
The township board is expected to decide on the rezoning proposals in early spring.
- The Morning Sun