THE MILLENNIAL
S T UDEN T
HOUSING
SEC TOR
By Steve Bergsman, Sponsored by
SIOR Foundation
There are more than 100 colleges and universities in the Boston metro including major research
institutions, liberal arts, and art and
technical schools. The student population has now climbed to over 200,000
and since they all don’t live at home
(many are foreign students) they all
have to live somewhere.
The problem in the Boston region is
there isn’t a lot of available land for new
student housing, and space that does
become available is often coveted by
other types of real estate developers.
Secondly, the real estate that universities might want is often pre-zoned for
something else.
“Doing student housing is not as easy
as it seems,” observes Arlon Brown,
SIOR, a senior advisor for SVN/Parsons
Commercial Group Boston. “Although
there is a lot of student housing develop-
ment going on here, it is a very involved
process. It’s more than just saying I
have a building or a piece of land and I’m
going to build student housing. You just
can’t wave a magic wand.”
Recently, Brown was doing work for
an architectural client that specialized
in assisted living, when it veered off to
do student housing for the University of
Massachusetts in the town of Amherst.
The problem: although the intended
property was zoned residential, only by
special permit could someone build stu-
dent housing. That required a repetitive
circuit through town meetings and the
Zoning Board of Appeal.
The Amherst tribulations were not
unique.
“All the schools in Boston are expanding,” Brown reports. “Partly, because
the U.S. student population is becoming international and affluent and the
universities are trying to capture these
learners. At Boston University, my alma
mater, they recently built apartments,
which is more expensive than the usual
dorms, as they have started to stratify
housing costs. When I was there, it was
