A one-bedroom apartment on Market Street in Philadelphia, staged for viewing. At $1,900 a month for 700 square feet, it is priced to discourage undergraduates. CreditJessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA — A block from Drexel University, a glassy new rental building offers residents a roof deck with a heated saltwater pool, a fire pit and outdoor televisions — amenities that would make for a raucous college party, if college students could live there.
But the 28-story tower at 3601 Market Street was not built to house any of Drexel’s 16,900 undergraduates. Nor is it intended for the 10,400 undergraduates studying at nearby University of Pennsylvania.
Instead, it aims to attract young professionals — junior faculty, office workers and young doctors — to live in University City, a West Philadelphia neighborhood that is also home to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
The Market Street apartments are among roughly 2,000 residential units that are planned or have recently opened in University City and are aimed at young professionals and graduate students. A local developer has also acquired eight rental buildings in the neighborhood since the summer, with plans to renovate those 600 units to attract more young professionals.
A one-bedroom model unit at 3601 Market in the Philadelphia neighborhood of University City. The development is a block from Drexel University.CreditJessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
About half of University City’s 50,600 residents are between the ages of 20 and 34, and of the 75,000 jobs in the area, three-quarters of them are in health care and education, according to a report by the University City District. The jobs tend to command high salaries. From 2008 to 2013, the number of mid- to high-wage jobs increased by 80 percent, according to the report. So for employers looking to recruit young workers, an influx of luxury housing built a few steps from the office could win over a prospective employee who might have balked at a long commute.
Near college campuses around the country, developers have begun building luxury housing for the staff, not the students. Tapping into a desire among some younger workers to live in walkable, urban communities, these developers have discovered that a college neighborhood can fit that bill, as students are no longer the only ones who want to live near campus.
“In a way, it’s almost a continuation of the college experience,” said Bruce J. Katz, the centennial scholar at the Brookings Institution, where he focuses on global urbanization. “Particularly for people who are involved in the entrepreneurial economy and who are looking to spend the bulk of their time outside their apartment.”
Among the new developments around the country are Century Square, a 60-acre mixed-use project rising near Texas A&M University in College Station with 250 luxury rentals; a mixed-use complex with 453 luxury rentals opposite Arizona State University in Tempe that will break ground this spring; and a 15-story tower with 180 residential units that opened in December in Hyde Park, a few blocks from the University of Chicago.
College campuses, particularly research universities, have all the ingredients necessary to become a trendy live-work enclave. The area around a college campus “is already lively. There are already bars and restaurants. There are already residential services,” said Dustin Downey, the senior vice president for multifamily development at Southern Land Company, which developed 3601 Market in Philadelphia with Redwood Capital Investments and the University City Science Center. Southern Land also built similar projects in Nashville near Vanderbilt University and in Raleigh near North Carolina State University. “With those conveniences comes a really high quality of living.”
For the universities, shiny new towers with playful amenities like shuffleboard, game rooms and dog runs make it easier to recruit young faculty members at no cost to the school, particularly in places like West Philadelphia, which lacks quality housing and has been plagued by poverty and crime for decades.
In March, Radnor Property Group will break ground on 3201 Race Street Apartments, a 16-story, mixed-use tower to be built on land owned by Drexel University. The property will include 164 market-rate apartments, townhomes and a child care center. “It makes the neighborhood safer,” said Nancy Trainer, the associate vice president for planning and design at Drexel University. “It makes a better environment for all of us.”
Photo
Developers hope the new, glassy development will attract young professionals like junior faculty, office workers and doctors to University City, which also is home to hospitals.CreditJessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
These apartments do not come cheap. At 3601 Market, a third of the units have rented since leasing began in August. Of the remaining listings, a 427-square-foot studio is $1,525 a month; a 698-square-foot one-bedroom with a balcony is $2,025 a month; and two bedrooms start at $2,749 a month. By comparison, the median rent in University City is $1,450 a month, according to the University City District’s report.
Developers use various strategies to keep undergraduates away from these new projects, including high rents that most students can’t afford. They time leasing to miss the start of the academic year, reject applicants who will rely on a guarantor to pay the rent and design spaces that are not ideal for young students. “The undergraduates get the message,” Mr. Downey said.
Otherwise, potential residents get skittish if they think that the halls might eventually get overrun with college students. “We’re not going to have bicycles hanging off of the balconies and we’re not going to have music blaring and kegs rolling down the hall,” said Lawrence Pobuda, a senior vice president at Opus Group, which plans to build luxury housing next to Arizona State University.
Not every community wants a glassy high rise with hundreds of new tenants who could strain public transit and increase traffic congestion. “There has been tension for many decades,” said Carolyn T. Adams, a professor at Temple University who studies urban development. “And so every time those institutions have needed to do some kind of construction or building they have had to work very hard to manage their relationship with the neighbors.”
For the residents of Powelton Village, which abuts Drexel University, new market-rate housing means a reprieve from undergraduate housing, which to them translates to empty beer cans littering the sidewalks of the tree-lined streets. Powelton Village is a neighborhood of mostly Victorian homes, yet the homeownership rate was only 13 percent in 2010, according to a neighborhood report co-written by Drexel University.
Many of the homes are divided into apartments for students. “We just need a balance in the neighborhood to keep it a community,” said John J.H. Phillips, an artist and the president of the Powelton Village Civic Association, which supported Drexel’s plan to redevelop 3201 Race Street. “The students don’t take part in things that communities do, whereas young professionals and young families would have a more active role in the community.”
The new development is having a ripple effect on the neighborhood. Last summer, Post Brothers Apartments, a local developer, began buying aging rental buildings with plans to renovate them. The centerpiece of the $95 million portfolio is Garden Court Plaza, a 146-unit Art Deco building at 4701 Pine Street. Apartments have parquet floors and crown molding, but kitchens and bathrooms need updating. As part of the renovations, the developers plan to upgrade an expansive green roof deck, adding croquet courts and outdoor grills. The developers also plan to restore the historic lobby and renovate apartments as leases turn over, raising rent to $1,900 a month for a one-bedroom, from about $1,200 a month.
“For a very long time no developer was focused on serving this massive market of young professionals that are working here,” said Matthew Pestronk, the president of Post Brothers Apartments. Until recently, “There has not been a white-collar, entry-level housing option available at all.”
