Housing may boost enrollment
Housing may boost enrollment
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Auraria students will have a new housing option opening Aug. 22, in what developers hope will bring a "sense of community to campus."
"I understand the nature of a commuter campus," said Mike Francone, student housing director for The Regency: Auraria's Student Housing Community, LLC. "At the end of classes you head home. There's no sense of community."
The Regency, an old hotel located at Interstate 25 and 38th, will be the first of several student housing projects to open on the perimeter of campus. The project is independent of all three schools on campus and the Auraria Higher Education Center. Francone said the development group has met with representatives from all three schools and AHEC, but it was only to inform them of what was happening. "Cooperation makes anything work better," Francone said.
State law requires that the campus, which is designed as a commuter campus, cannot operate any student housing facilities.
Francone said that although the Tivoli is a great asset to the campus, there really is no place for students to spend an extended amount of time together. He hopes the Regency project will change that. Francone expects that once opened, the housing project, which will open with 307 beds this fall and around 700 projected for spring semester 2006, will serve as a community that all Auraria students can grow into and live with each other.
Francone said The Regency is not targeting any one school or any one type of student. Students who live at The Regency must attend one of the three Auraria schools for at least six credit hours over at least two semesters, and must be able to afford monthly rent starting at $450 per student.
Along with bringing a sense of community to campus, Francone said the housing community could give each of the schools an opportunity to recruit more students and create more of a traditional campus.
Francone acknowledged a simultaneous student housing project, currently being developed by Urban Ventures, which is planning a comparable project for the Atlas Metals site, just southwest of the campus. Francone said he expects The Regency to fill all its beds, and that the Urban Ventures project is not competition because if AHEC's numbers are right, both student housing projects will not meet the demand for student housing.
As of press time Urban Ventures could not be reached for comment.
The Regency is about two miles from campus and will provide a free bus shuttle to and from the campus as well as free parking for 728 cars. They promise a nightly security patrol, secure building access, on-site management and maintenance staff, laundry facilities, a swimming pool, amphitheater, dining hall, convenience store, study and social areas, a computer room and wireless internet access in some areas.
"We're converting what was the grand ballroom of the Regency Hotel into a 24,000 square foot gymnasium that will include two college-size basketball courts, volleyball facilities and an adjacent fitness center including a weight room," Francone said.
When prospective University of Colorado and Health Sciences Center students surf the university's Web site looking for student housing options, they are first told the campus has no student housing. The university does, however, recommend two student housing options that are not really close to campus.
The first recommendation is the Teikyo Loretto Heights University, located eight miles from campus at 3001 S. Federal Blvd. The other, located an equal distance from campus in the opposite direction, is the Lowry Education Center, which is more for the Community College of Aurora. Management for both did not answer questions regarding how many Auraria students they serve or how The Regency will affect their business.
The university clearly tells prospective students on the Web site that the school does not endorse any student housing option; the information is provided merely for the student's convenience.
The school will not endorse any housing option unless it is their property, said Barbara Edwards, admissions director for UCD.
Edwards agrees with Francone that enrollment may see a slight increase because prospective students from Colorado and around the country want a housing option.
"Even Denver students want to go to UCD and not want to live at home ... we're banking on that - we know that's the facts," Edwards said.