In this episode of Engaging the Community, KSMU’s monthly conversation with Missouri State University President Clif Smart, we talk about the boom in private student housing in central and downtown Springfield.
You can hear the episode below.
Smart said the university works with these private developers to share information that helps them evaluate the demand for student housing.
The university doesn’t have a say on where the private apartment complexes are built, he said.
“But we do think they're a benefit. We think it's a benefit that students are living in and around the university. We think it's a benefit that kind of dilapidated structures are removed and replaced with these really nice structures. And we think it sort of extends the look of the university,” he said.
“And so because we think it's a good thing, we're always happy to share information,” Smart said. Some of that information could be enrollment projections or whether the university is planning to build any additional housing on campus, he said.
“And they always want to talk about parking,” he said.
City Council has, in recent weeks, evaluated plans for a $50 million apartment complex developers hope to build in a vacant lot off of St. Louis Street downtown. But the developer only plans to have parking spots for about a third of the tenants, meaning one concern among nearby business owners--and competing developers—is parking.
Smart said MSU gets involved “on the margin,” but would not take a position or testify at a hearing before City Council on matters like these.
“And so then the question becomes, ‘Well, where do the other people park?’ Well, first of all, everybody doesn't have a car. But if we presume that we've got a couple hundred cars that are now going to be parking somewhere else, you know, what we would do is work with the developer to see: is there a solution to that that the university could be involved in?” Smart said.
For example, he said, MSU sells overnight parking in Bear Park North to people living in those private developments nearby. Typically, overnight parking in university lots is not allowed.
“We'd be willing to have conversations with this developer about: could some of their tenants rent from us directly to provide some parking there, if students were interested in that?” Smart said.
And he said there’s no question that the boom in new, private student housing has been a positive recruitment tool for prospective students.
“It's a one stop shop and you move in and your cable and your Internet and your utilities and your garbage and everything is rolled into one payment. And they look attractive and they have study areas and recreational spaces,” Smart said.