It's a dorm room! It's an apartment! It's... it's...
... well, we're not sure what it is, but the real estate development firm known as Portland State University is building tons of them, in one bunker after another. The goal, for some reason, is to have 25% of PSU students live on "campus," as opposed to 10%. Somehow this is going to give them a better education.
But for sure, there were some short-term jobs for the almighty Walsh construction company and the SERA architects. Tri-Met was in the middle of it all. And now some private company in Texas makes a profit off the deal, leasing and operating the building. And wowie zowie, LEED Gold! So it's all good.
Drive by and you can smell the Goldschmidt. Just don't try to park.
| Posted at 7:47 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (14)
You left out "public private partnership"....
And you don't have to be a student to live there and....it's pet friendly! according to the web page.
Yup, the smell of Goldschmidt is everywhere, just like the composting buckets.
Posted by Portland Native | September 11, 2012 8:06 AM
At least the biotech jobs will soon be arriving in SoWa.
http://www.ous.edu/news_and_information/news/files/LifeScienceBrochureweb.pdf
The Life Sciences Collaborative Complex project will cost an estimated $250 million and will be financed as follows:
» State funded bonds $125 million
(funding request to Oregon Legislature)
» Project revenue bonds $50 million
» Gifts and Grants $75 million
Clinical Lab Sciences
Human Physiology/Infant
Mental Health College of Pharmacy
Interprof Simulation Center
Oregon Master of Public Health
Program (OMPH)
Oregon Translational Research and
Drug Discovery Institute (OTRADI)
Innovation Inter-institutional Space
Imaging Center
Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)
Facility Incubator
Human Investigations/Clinical Trials
Incubator Accelerator
Established Companies
Posted by Funny Guy | September 11, 2012 8:19 AM
American Campus doesn’t require tenants to attend school, but its residence operates more like a dormitory than a traditional apartment complex.
Could this be the future, workforce housing?
Posted by clinamen | September 11, 2012 8:43 AM
To train people to get used to less space and organized living, you have to start early.
Posted by Tim | September 11, 2012 8:44 AM
There is a lot of demand for on campus housing. Long waiting lists at all the other student housing buildings. Grad students and out of state and foreign studaents want on campus housing.Those students pay full out of state tuition so the school wants to attract them.
Posted by mike | September 11, 2012 9:18 AM
Cover story on Newsweek this week is about whether or not college is worth it anymore. Talks some about the "academic arms race" and what schools do to attract students - things like fancy dorms and food services and recreation centers. All things that add to the cost of school but not to your education. PSU is an urban campus and just doesn't need to have much housing on campus. 10% would seem about right to me. 25% seems high.
Posted by dg | September 11, 2012 9:34 AM
You can look at PSU being landlords this way:
University Pointe got $Millions of subsidies, besides getting the land almost free from TriMet. So all the homeowners, apartment owners, etc. renting to PSU students (or otherwise, since this building rents to anyone) are in direct competition with PSU...but without all the taxpayer subsidies. How equitable is that?
Posted by lw | September 11, 2012 9:50 AM
How equitable is Portland when you look past the advertising hype?
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | September 11, 2012 9:56 AM
Cheap, dorm style housing for kids who want to live near campus. A landlord who won't hold roomates accountable for the rent on someone who flakes out and leaves the place suddenly. The horror.......
Posted by Cary | September 11, 2012 10:12 AM
Not much competition to surrouinding landlords because it'e overpriced http://psuvanguard.com/feature/why-one-student-hates-university-pointe/
Posted by Mike | September 11, 2012 11:51 AM
'Talks some about the "academic arms race" and what schools do to attract students - things like fancy dorms and food services and recreation centers.'
Giving students rolls royce living standards seems just one more example of over-promising results from college. These units will likely be nicer than where many of them will live for the five years after college.
Posted by Snards | September 11, 2012 12:38 PM
It's strangely funny that there are some colleges/universities in far-flung locations, like Pullman, Washington and Moscow, Idaho, that manage to have huge amounts of on-campus student residents, and many students don't need cars given there's not many places to drive to, and student parking is extremely restricted (and usually to the furthest-out parking lots).
But they aren't green, becuase they aren't "urban" areas and they don't have Streetcars. There's a hell of a lot more green in the Palouse than in the city that has an EPA Superfund Site in the heart of the town.
Posted by Erik H. | September 11, 2012 12:45 PM
Also read the O this morning and it looks like they need to spend $44M on a new basketball arena worthy of his ego, erm, PSU.
Y'know Wim, if you stood on top the student housing you could probably see Memorial Coliseum which is sitting there empty as we speak and could be easily used, as it once was, as a basketball arena.
God, these political types get tiring, the real jobs like good education and fixing potholes, they can't do. Playing developer with other people's money sure is easy, though.
Posted by Steve | September 11, 2012 2:32 PM
Wim is simply a tool of the Chancellor and his henchman Jay Kenton who dreamed this up before I retired in 2002. More new administrators and fewer faculty to teach more and more students, living in real estate owned by PSU. This was Jay's dream - to recruit more and more students from eastern and central Oregon while promising the mommies and daddies that PSU would house them. Can't do that without real estate.
mrf
Posted by mrfearless47 | September 11, 2012 7:37 PM