Student Housing & Community Colleges

John Whitney, AIA

While housing is not typically provided at community colleges, there is a growing awareness that addressing the needs of housing-insecure students may be crucial to the institutional mission.

Public-private partnership (P3) development for student housing may be uniquely positioned to provide student housing facilities on, or near, community college campuses. Financed, designed, constructed, and maintained by an independent developer, these student residences can be built at no cost to the community college. They require only the land to build on and a mutually agreed-upon guarantee of some degree of coordination and housing occupancy.

P3 student housing is not a new idea. Its efficacy has been proven at projects such as our 14-building, 6,850-bed P3 development at the University of Kentucky. And it is expanding into the community college market; currently, institutions such as Salt Lake Community College and the Virginia Community College System are actively pursuing P3 student housing agreements.

Providing a residential facility for housing-insecure students is a tremendous amenity for a community college to offer. Unlike most 4-year colleges, the new residence does not displace a current residence, there is no loss of a much-treasured revenue stream.

Leasing rates can be determined in a beneficial partnership with the college and developer and at the end of the development agreement, the residence hall can be turned over to the institution at no or very little cost.

Sherman Carter Barnhart Architects served as Architects for the largest revitalization of collegiate housing in the United States in our P3 partnership at the University of Kentucky. This is what we do. We would love to talk with you about student housing possibilities at your school.

Please let us know if we can be of assistance

Review our Student Housing and Higher Education portfolios.

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