Prairie View A&M tackles housing shortage
When Maduforo Eze arrived at Prairie View A&M University in 2014, there were no complaints about finding a place to live, he said. But as the university began to grow, so did students’ quests for on-campus housing.
“It’s the best (option) we have in a 10-mile radius around the campus,” Eze said of living on campus.
Eze, who graduated May 11, described his experience living oncampus all five years as “pretty fair,” but other students the former student body president represented weren’t so lucky.
Housing has been an issue that has plagued the historically black university on and off for years, according to Prairie View Mayor David Allen, and increased enrollment has meant a shortage of places for students to live.
Some students have experienced short periods of homelessness, opting to couch surf with other students, while others have resorted to off-campus housing — some of which was unreliable or unfinished. So, when the university announced last month that it was breaking ground on its newest on-campus housing community, Eze called it a “breath of fresh air.”
Prairie View A&M has partnered with American Campus Communities, a student housing development and management company, to create a $37.5 million student housing complex that will have 540 student beds.
The 230,000-square-foot housing complex, slated to open in fall 2020, will feature a central community center with social lounges, a fitness center, multiple
study rooms, and outdoor courtyards with seating, a movie lawn, grilling stations, a hammock cabana and gaming stations, according to a university release.
Designed by STG Design, an architectural, interior design and planning firm in Houston, Austin and Nashville, Tenn., the “livinglearning community” will be one step closer to meeting the university’s goal of having 5,000 beds on campus, according to the Texas A&M University System, which includes Prairie View.
Spikes in enrollment have created an increasing demand for housing.
The college reached its highest enrollment — 9,516 students — in fall 2018, an increase of more than 1,200 students, or 15 percent, from fall 2015. A total of 4,366 beds, roughly 46 percent of fall enrollment, are currently available on-campus for students, university spokeswoman Candace Johnson said in an email to the Houston Chronicle.
While growth in enrollment is a “good problem to have,” Prairie View A&M President Ruth J. Simmons said, it comes with challenges. Many students have an expectation of living on campus, especially since the university is located in rural Waller County about 45 miles northwest of Houston.
Concerns about student housing came to a head in February, when students and parents protested the university’s proposed changes to its housing process, with many worried that current students would be booted off-campus with nowhere to go. And last semester, some students were forced to stay at hotels when off-campus student housing was unfinished.
Yolanda Bevill, assistant to the university president, noted earlier this year that plans for the 540-bed student housing community were in the works.
“I know we’ve been hearing that it’s coming,” Eze said, but actually seeing the groundbreaking ceremony — held in late April — and knowing of the planning that the university has put into the project has been reassuring.
“They didn’t just throw something up,” Eze said. “They wanted to be able to create more than just a living environment, with a social aspect and an academic aspect.”
Though Eze offered several details that he said he learned through the university, the university did not confirm.
“The housing leadership team is working through the details and look forward to the students experiencing the new community in the Fall of 2020,” Johnson said in an emailed statement.
Allen said it was a “wonderful thing” that the university is building for growth and the city is preparing, too.
The city of Prairie View has plans to have more than 4,000 beds within the area in the next 18 months, the mayor said, with a bulk of it being student housing.
Allen said the city is bracing for new housing startups, one that will feature more than 75 “living quarters” and several retail businesses, and two properties slated for Richards Road by U.S. 290.
John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, said in a statement that investing in Prairie View A&M has been a priority for the system.
And Simmons emphasized that it’s essential the university ensures its “growing student population has access to a safe and secure living environment while matriculating through the university.”
“We’re excited that this new project will enable us to meet the demand for oncampus housing,” Simmons said.
The project will be funded through a tax-exempt bank loan through the nonprofit Collegiate Housing Foundation, according to Jay Bates, vice president of finance and transaction at Austin-based American Campus Communities. The project-based debt will be paid back through revenue — rental rates and occupancy — over the next 30 years.