U of A to shutter residence for student parents

Deteriorating Michener Park ‘beyond its lifespan,’ official says

The University of Alberta will close its only residence for students who parent because of escalating maintenance costs and decreasing demand.

Built in the 1960s as a family residence, the condition of Michener Park has slowly deteriorated over time to the point where the university has actually closed some of the units because they are no longer habitable.

In the past academic year, 379 students called the mixture of townhouses and walk-up apartments home. But if you include extended family and significant others, the number of residents is closer to 700.

Michener Park will cease to be a residence effective Aug. 31, 2020.

Katherine Huising, associate vice-president of ancillary services, said the current occupancy rate of 80 per cent has declined by 12 per cent over the past four years in part because of changing demographics of students studying at the University of Alberta but also because of the condition of the buildings.

“The decision was clear that the site itself is not ideal for our students and the physical structure is beyond its lifespan,” she said Thursday.

There is also no money left to deal with maintenance.

Essential maintenance costs have increased by more than 36 per cent over the past five years and by more than 100 per cent in the past 10 years, the university said.

In 2017, maintenance costs reached $2 million, or about 47 per cent of the total expenses incurred. Of the expected 3,000 individual maintenance requests the university is expecting to receive this academic year, about 22 per cent of those will be for Michener Park.

Furthermore, the last $380,000 stored away in reserve funds was exhausted at the end of the last academic year.

Closing Michener Park will also remove about $25 million from the university’s ballooning deferred maintenance bill.

Huising said one of the first questions she was asked when she arrived at the university a year ago centred on the future of the building. She has spent the past 12 months looking into the reality of the space and listening to concerns from the students living there.

She said Michener Park was “not at the standards that we would offer to our students and so that decision had to be made.

“No matter where the consultation lands at the end of this year I am confident we will not be rebuilding at that site,” she said.

What will happen to the building and the land is yet to be decided but one thing is for sure.

“It will not be a student residence,” she said.

With fewer and fewer residents owning vehicles, transportation outside of peak school hours for those working in labs late at night or over the weekends has meant that some face a 45-minute commute, Huising said.

The residence is also facing increased security concerns including vandalism and theft from vehicles, Huising said.

Letters were sent to all residents in June and a public meeting to discuss the decision was held soon after. Another meeting is scheduled for September.

In the meantime, single-year leases will still be honoured but if residents want to leave early they will face no penalty.