O.C. college adds housing complex
Four years ago, Chapman University asked the city of Orange to permit it to increase the maximum student enrollment from 8,700 to 11,650.
This prompted a huge backlash from Old Towne Orange residents frustrated with landlords renting single-family homes to transient students.
University officials subsequently withdrew the plan. After creating a neighborhood advisory committee that year, Chapman recognized there was a crucial need to develop new student housing.
“We established a goal in the [2018] strategic plan to house a minimum of 50% of our students within five years and will accomplish that two years ahead of schedule,” Chapman President Daniele Struppa wrote in a statement.
A $47.4-million building, named the K, will open Aug. 22. The 400-bed building is the second big housing project Chapman has opened to students in the last year.
In 2017, Chapman spent $150 million to buy the Chapman Grand apartments in Anaheim’s redevelopment area called the Platinum Triangle. University officials converted market-rate rentals into dorms for up to 900 students last year.
The K sits on what was a loading dock and motor pool area for the adjacent packinghouse that the Santiago Orange Growers Assn. built over a century ago.
The Santiago group sold the packinghouse site in 1967 to the Villa Park Orchards Assn. Chapman acquired the packinghouse and adjoining industrial buildings decades later.
In January 2018, construction crews demolished a large metal shade structure that stood where the K sits now. Chapman also moved some structures to the north side of the packinghouse.
Struppa announced at the annual State of the University address in February that an anonymous European donor contributed $10 million toward the construction of the new residence hall. The K encompasses 123,562 square feet on about 1.3 acres at Cypress Street and Palm Avenue.
The K may not satisfy hard-liners who argue that Chapman should provide housing to keep its students out of their neighborhoods.
But Orange resident Brian Lochrie, who helped start the campaign that blocked Chapman’s expansion proposal, said the K is a step in the right direction.
“I hope that they understand that Chapman is located in a residential community that essentially landlocks them in terms in how much they are able to grow,” Lochrie said.