It takes an apartment village with class
When Campus Village at Auraria opens next August at 318 Walnut St. in Denver, the $42 million residential housing development will seek to blend the excitement of dorm-room life with the amenities of apartment living.
The 230-apartment development, for students attending the University of Colorado at Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver and the Community College of Denver, is being erected on 5 acres near the Auraria campus.
Campus Village will feature studio, two-bedroom and four-bedroom apartments. Pets are not allowed, although fish tanks up to 25 gallons are.
Rent per month will range from $865 for a studio to $575 for a bed in a two-bedroom, double-occupancy efficiency. Residents can eliminate cooking with a meal plan at the on-site cafe, which will feature sandwiches, a coffee bar and various hot meals.
A bonus: Campus Village plans to offer events and services for students, including nutrition and fitness seminars, community-outreach programs and career-planning and time-management classes.
Campus Village, being developed by Denver’s Urban Ventures LLC, has preregistered 40 people.
Housing a bit too upscale for students
The Observatory Place condominiums will border the University of Denver campus, but residents are more likely to be well-off empty-nesters, professors and administrators than starving students.
Developers Allen Anderson and Dan McCoy of Pioneer Place Residences LLC are building the 72-unit project on 1.07 acres at 2200 S. University Blvd. across the street from DU’s Daniels College of Business.
The project will be built on land that currently houses an office building that was owned by the Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Methodist Church.
The $25 million project was initially marketed to university staff, faculty and local alumni, and more than half the units are under contract or reserved.
Construction on the five-story building is to begin in the spring, and the project will be finished in summer 2007. Units at Observatory Place range from 932 to 2,184 square feet, and prices range from $289,000 to $621,000. A handful of income-restricted units will also be available under Denver’s inclusionary-zoning ordinance.
Listing agent Bruce Dreffer said the condos feature contemporary architecture, open great rooms, terraces and 10-foot ceilings. Standard finishes include granite countertops, hardwood floors and stainless-steel appliances.
The units so far have attracted a wide range of buyers lured by the athletic and cultural activities available at the university.
“It’s all over the map. We’ve got first-time buyers and senior administration and faculty members,” McCoy said.
The project has also attracted a handful of parents purchasing units for college-age children and “some students with the wherewithal to afford them,” McCoy said.
Boutique hotel, student housing mingle
College students attending the Auraria campus next August will have the chance to live the high life. The Auraria Foundation and Sage Hospitality are renovating the Executive Tower Inn, an aging high-rise hotel near the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Sage, known for its boutique hotels, will restore the first 16 floors, while the foundation is renovating the top 14 floors into student housing dubbed the Inn at Auraria.
The foundation plans to create 125 units consisting of 96 four-bedroom, two-bath units at 1,200 square feet and 29 two-bedroom, one-bath units at 857 square feet, said Dean Wolf, executive vice president for administration at the Auraria Higher Education Center.
The fully furnished units come with kitchens, carpet and tiled bathrooms. Rents will run $649 a room, or $3,000 for the four-bedroom units, with utilities, including high-speed Internet, included.
“I would suspect this will appeal more to upperclassmen and graduate students,” Wolf said.
Don’t expect to see students, beers in hand, lounging in the lobby and bugging the concierge for tickets to Linkin Park. Students will have a separate entrance on 14th Street, while hotel guests will enter on Curtis Street.
