Student Housing – Apex Project

Case Study

As Rowan began to increase its capital spending locally, the city of Glassboro saw a unique opportunity to leverage the Rowan investments by developing a plan for the transformation of the downtown area leading to the university. This plan ultimately became the $476 million, mixed-use development of Rowan Boulevard. In the city of Glassboro more than 30 percent of school-aged children qualified for the free lunch program and 20 percent of families earn under the poverty line. The growth that was transforming Rowan was noticed by the former mayor of Glassboro and the business community. Policy and business leaders were encouraged by the growing student market for retail services, housing and food coupled with the university’s strategic focus on becoming an “engine of growth” for Southern New Jersey. In 2008, the town purchased and demolished rundown properties to make way for the development. The Rowan Boulevard design plan generated significant interest by developers, in part because it included lease-back arrangements with the university for student housing and academic buildings.

The South Jersey Technology Park at Rowan University is located approximately one mile from the Rowan campus. According to Dr. Beena Sukumaran, who directed the management of the park for Rowan, the growth of business and investment in the Glassboro area was initiated in partnership with a local philanthropist, Sam Jones, who donated $1 million in 2006 for the establishment of the technology park. According to university literature, “The mission of the Technology Park is to establish a technology based entrepreneurial economy; expand and strengthen the unique research and learning environment of Rowan University; and create value for its surrounding communities in their economic, physical and social development.”

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Rowan University: A Blue-Collar Soul

Case Study

The Warwick Hotel has been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina. The 154 room hotel, with its 1950s-era modernist architecture, opened in 1952. Tulane University signed a lease on Warwick and the structure will be completely renovated using opportunity zone money from the New Orleans Redevelopment Fund. The apartments, now called Thirteen15, will house graduate students, doctors, researchers, faculty who are tied into Tulane’s nearby Medical School.

Tulane also will be the anchor tenant of the refurbished Charity Hospital around the corner, another property that has been unoccupied since Hurricane Katrina 15 years ago and which is slated for a $300 million rehabilitation. Tulane will be leasing 350,000 square feet of space, 100,000 square feet of which will be converted into laboratory facilities, with the rest given over to teaching space, offices and study areas, to serve approximately 1,000 staff and students.

“The Warwick and Charity projects are prime opportunities to exponentially expand the university’s size and research mission, while also bolstering the creation of a robust research and commercialization ecosystem in the heart of the city,” Tulane President Mike Fitts said in a news release.

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Case Study

As soon as it became clear that Stillman would be located in a Opportunity Zone, the school’s president seized the opportunity to enlist the support of potential private equity partners, the City of Tuscaloosa, and consultants to develop investment projects for the school’s vacant and unused property holdings. As a result, Stillman College has developed plans to build three projects: 100 units of workforce housing for its faculty, administration, staff; redevelopment of an existing, vacant student dormitory for senior student housing; and a hotel (which has been postponed for COVID-19 reasons).

Stillman College signed a memorandum of understanding with partners in a project to build a 125-room hotel on the college campus to serve as a teaching center for the school’s hospitality management program. Also a part of the project is mixed-use residential and commercial space, including market-rate housing for faculty, graduate students and the surrounding community. The plan is for the project to be sold back to Stillman College for its long-term use at the end of a 10-year holding period, with the cash flowing back to the college. The primary investor is the Renaissance HBCU Opportunity Fund, an Opportunity Fund, that provides assistance and financing to historically black colleges and universities.

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Case Study

Marquette University is one of the 5 anchor institutions funding the Near West Side Partners nonprofit organization. The organization’s mission is to revitalize and sustain the Near West Side as a thriving business and residential corridor, through collaborative efforts to promote economic development, improved housing, unified neighborhood identity and branding, and greater safety for residents and businesses. Their first major program – the Promoting Assets & Reducing Crime (PARC) Initiative – was “a three-year, $1.5+ million initiative that leverages law enforcement resources to improve safety – largely by addressing negative impact properties, while working with business and other stakeholders to change the perception of this neighborhood and attract economic development opportunities.”

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Near West Side

Case Study

The University of Indianapolis joined city and community leaders to celebrate construction of the University Lofts apartments, an off-campus student housing development in partnership with Indianapolis-headquartered Strategic Capital Partners. This $20.5 million investment solidifies the University’s catalyst role in the revitalization taking place on the southside of Indianapolis. The university has a strategy which combines university and community growth and includes more than $50 million in capital investment for the campus and surrounding area. Other projects include Greyhound Village, another student apartment complex which was a joint venture between the university and Strategic Capital Partners, and the Books & Brews Used Bookstore and Taproom project, a partnership between the university and Indianapolis-based developer OakBridge Properties to repurpose another property.

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New off-campus housing partnership impacts neighborhood renaissance on southside – The University of Indianapolis

Case Study

Arizona State moved its schools of nursing and journalism and other programs into a once-blighted section of Phoenix in a project that includes student housing and private development. Part of the anchor institution model is to invest in a suite of different programs and initiatives meant to connect them with the community. At ASU, the building of the Downtown Phoenix campus helped to revitalize the area and spur continued growth. “ASU does work in this anchor institution model but we’re a little different. Take the Downtown Phoenix campus for instance. We built a whole brand new campus. That’s not happening at a lot of institutions. So we’re engaging in those revitalization efforts in part by building brand new campuses, and when we’re doing that, we’re also investing in things like Civic Space Park, which is public, but it’s still connected to the campus because we have very open boundaries. ASU is growing in a polycentric model, which means we have multiple campuses and little hubs but we’re one institution.” Meagan Ehlenz

ASU hosted Impact Experience to lead a collaboration experience in March of 2019 amongst tribal leaders, university leaders, fund managers, philanthropists, and community leaders to discuss potential equitable and inclusive strategies for Opportunity Zones in Arizona. The conversation focused on finding solutions across sectors to encourage collaboration and ensure inclusive and equitable economic development that focuses on the social and environmental impact of Opportunity Zones in Arizona. This collaboration was highlighted in Forbes in September of 2019.

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Case Study

The Greater University Circle Initiative coordinates three large anchor institutions located in Cleveland’s University Circle area—about one-square mile of educational, cultural, and health institutions. Through this initiative, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western Reserve University networked and deployed their resources in a powerful challenge to the persistent poverty and disinvestment in seven surrounding neighborhoods. This strategy pushes against gentrification by seeking to improve the prospects and income of the 60,000 people who live in these neighborhoods. The Greater University Circle Initiative seeks to connect community networks, in part through community engagement, to improve the quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods, and to give residents a greater voice and connection to the resources of the anchor institutions. It is led by the Cleveland Foundation, the world’s first community foundation. Their goals are broadly identified as: Hire Local, Live Local, Buy Local, and Connect.

Buy Local—increase opportunities for anchor institutions to purchase goods and services locally, and help small businesses increase their capacity to meet these needs
Hire Local—expand efforts by anchors to hire residents from the neighborhoods, and help improve the local workforce system;
Live Local—support and improve the employer-assisted housing program, Greater University Circle, and leverage it to help create more stable neighborhoods.
Connect—the key to all of these efforts, using the resources and skills of organizations such as Neighborhood Connections, a grassroots grant-maker, as well as other intermediaries such as Towards Employment and Ohio Means Jobs (workforce investment board), Cleveland Neighborhood Progress (community development), BioEnterprise, MidTown, University Circle Inc., and the Economic and Community Development Institute (small business support).

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Case Study

Working through Campus Partners, a nonprofit community development corporation, Ohio State invested $28 million of its endowment funds into the “South Campus Gateway” complex. This project included the renovation of over 1,300 units of housing and the building of a 500,000 square-foot shopping center, as well as an on-going commitment to improving community schools through service learning. The University leveraged an additional $100 million in external funds to support the project, including a $35 million New Market Tax Credit allocation.