Addison Park for students already exists...pricey but nice

How much is Addison Park?

walty12 said

How much is Addison Park?

I believe it's in the $750-$900 a month range depending on what floor plan and living arrangement you can find.  That's for  just a room too, but everything is included in the monthly payment.  I was curious if Addison leases to non-students, it would be a nice place for an alumni to live.  Although, I'm sure it can get a little loud from Thursday-Saturday night.  Not the ideal situation if you're a young professional lol.

The said

walty12 said

How much is Addison Park?

I believe it's in the $750-$900 a month range depending on what floor plan and living arrangement you can find.  That's for  just a room too, but everything is included in the monthly payment.  I was curious if Addison leases to non-students, it would be a nice place for an alumni to live.  Although, I'm sure it can get a little much loud from Thursday-Saturday night.  Not the ideal situation if you're a young professional lol.

They are nice but $900 is steep.

walty12 said

The said

walty12 said

How much is Addison Park?

I believe it's in the $750-$900 a month range depending on what floor plan and living arrangement you can find.  That's for  just a room too, but everything is included in the monthly payment.  I was curious if Addison leases to non-students, it would be a nice place for an alumni to live.  Although, I'm sure it can get a little much loud from Thursday-Saturday night.  Not the ideal situation if you're a young professional lol.

They are nice but $900 is steep.

I agree, but they advertise as "luxury student living"  I was very skeptical that the units were going to rent, however they had no problem filling their units.  I think a lot of the kids that live there are from up North and/or from families that have a very high income.

I was told by an Addison Park rep that they actually all rented out within a month of school starting and had to turn plenty of people away. Thus the University Park project (same company)

Wow, I remember battling to pay $320 in rent in college a few years back.  $900 is insane.

I watched the City Council meeting about this the other night. Kinda understand where they're coming from.

They voted for legislation before that allowed "special group" housing that would include student housing. The Mayor scolded them that if they were against projects like this, then maybe they didn't know what they were voting for. Burn. She said this may not necessarily be the right type of project for student housing - but no less than eight other people have come forward wanting to build college student housing projects around town and the Mayor certainly doesn't want to run people off who are proposing $35 million projects, especially when the city's economy is hurting so bad.

Councilwoman Constance Scott's concern regarded regulation and eviction, for instance, how were the student housing projects going to get rid of the people who aren't students (whether graduated or otherwise). This is not a big problem, and really, it shouldn't be the city's problem. They should be able to put the Former Student Eviction plan in as a requirement for housing and be done with it. It's not that hard.

Councilwoman and Deputy Mayor Susan Haynie said that she had actually had conversation with University Architect Tom Donaudy about how the 20th Street entrance was under-utilized. They think 20th Street, perhaps out to Dixie, should be re-purposed/re-zoned to cater to college students. Donaudy expressed extreme interest and said he would be happy to work with the city about this idea. There was no further discussion about that idea during this Council meeting but I hope they continue that discussion because it's a really interesting idea.

The City Manager wanted some direction from the Mayor - Did she want to shoot down this project or how did she want to move forward? The Mayor said she'd like further research since there wasn't a consensus and there wasn't any project formally put forth to vote on at this time.

Councilman Anthony Majhess was clearly the enemy here, bringing up multiple points in an attempt to sink the project. One argument was that, because the project is dorm-style in setup with four people to a suite, his concern is what happens to it if it's unsuccessful and can't be sold as a traditional apartment complex because it isn't built that way. I guess he's never heard of the idea of either combining two rooms into one or simply knocking down the entire thing and building anew on the site. He went on to say that even though it's four people to a unit, really, they bring in their girlfriends and friends and suddenly it's more like 6 or 8 people living there. How do they police that, especially since it's hard to prove when people say "they're just visiting." That's when the "burden on our city forces" comment came up. He said the current parking setup, which is "industry standard" at 0.9 spots per person, is inadequate for dealing with the freeloaders and party guests. He's worried about the possible noise impact, or he was until someone reiterated that it was in the middle of an industrial zone. He then said I don't know, these projects are traditionally confined to campus and really once they approve this dorm-style housing, the campus expands into the city "and the city can never get it back." The idea of "giving up a stretch of land cutting right through our city" (referring to the 20th Street Dixie idea) bothers him.

Councilman Michael Mullough was our biggest proponent and the voice of reason here. He was very firm about it, saying more or less, "Look, the fact of the matter is that students will find housing whether we approve this project or not. We can make a choice here to have unregulated student housing, like we have now with students crammed into apartment complexes and townhouses which weren't designed with them in mind, or we can make a choice to set a standard for this and regulate it. I've talked with FAU officials and their projections show that even with the second wave of the new housing they're building, the supply will outweigh the demand be several thousand people. These types of projects are in need, they're an inevitability, and we need to get this thing going."

So there you have it. As some people pointed out, this place is going to be as expensive as Addison Park. But it's important because both projects set a precedent. If they're established and do well, it brings in more student housing. Eventually businesses start catering to the students in the area and wham, suddenly FAU has a small college town atmosphere around the campus. This can happen for us, finally. The whole city doesn't need to convert. We just need the area around campus. I think that's more than a reasonable request, especially since there's nothing spectacular around campus anyway (half of the shopping centers near campus are dead anyway, the "industrial zone" has half-finished buildings, etc)

Great post, thanks for the update. You are 100% spot on with your comments!

For those who are interested, the Boca Raton City Council will be discussing the fate of the "University Park" off-campus dormitory tonight at 6:30 pm.

City of Boca Raton - City Government

It's on the agenda for Planning and Zoning.


…or maybe not? Sounds like it might have been tabled until the first week of January…