Rent-by-the-bed student housing comes to R.I.

GATHERING SPACE: The common area of the newly opened apartment building at 257 Thayer St. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
GATHERING SPACE: The common area of the newly opened apartment building at 257 Thayer St. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

For decades, college students who wanted to live off campus would find roommates and rent a house or an apartment, and divide the rent and utilities.

That worked well enough if everyone stayed together for the duration of the lease. But if someone left, the rest were on the hook for the rental and utilities.

Now, a new format is becoming more common, a “rent-by-the-bed” approach that allows apartment-management companies to lease apartments by the bedroom, through individual leases.

In Rhode Island, “by-the-bed” leases have been introduced for the first time at 257 Thayer Street, a newly constructed, 267-bed apartment building near Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.

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Phoenix-Lincoln, the parent company of Friendship & Clifford LLC, which proposes to develop student apartments on a parcel in the former Interstate 195 corridor, plans to lease in a similar, by-the-bed format. That project is to include 500 beds, grouped into suites of four.

The Dallas-based developer last year opened the first privately constructed student residence hall in Boston, called GrandMarc at Northeastern, a 17-story tower designed to house the university’s freshmen honors college, as well as graduate students on upper floors.

Providence has a newly updated zoning ordinance intended to attract more private development of student housing downtown. The new ordinance, which took effect in December 2014, allows four or more people who are not related to live in an apartment downtown. The old zoning allowed this density only if the property was owned or leased by a university or nonprofit.

According to planners, the change was intended to encourage private development of student housing, which produces property tax revenue.

Development of student apartments by private companies is a growing sector across the United States.

Gilbane Development Co., based in Providence, refers to it as “the next level of student living,” and has constructed $315 million in student apartment housing across the country in the past five years.

The company portfolio includes a 406-bed facility in Richmond, Va., near Virginia Commonwealth University, a 560-bed apartment building near the University of Missouri in Columbia, and facilities near the University of Cincinnati, Iowa State University, Colorado State University and near the South Loop in Chicago.

The concept is to provide hotel-like amenities for students, who pay a single rental rate, by the bedroom, for a fully furnished unit which includes all utilities and fees, according to Robert V. Gilbane, chairman and CEO of Gilbane Development.

“This provides a much better environment for the students, and a much better environment for the community,” he said.

The apartments are energy-efficient, have common areas that offer amenities, including pool tables and televisions, and each floor has a group study room. The rooms are fully furnished. Each resident has a bedroom that has an individual lock, accessed with their key card.

If a student leaves the lease, they are responsible, not their suite-mates. The bedroom can then be leased again. The format is particularly appealing to international students, who are seeking simplicity and full-service solutions to housing, and who often apartment-hunt online, according to Gilbane.

Apartment buildings feature on-site management, and amenities including gyms, underground parking and in some cases, pools. The project in Providence is among the company’s smallest projects, but it too features by-the-bed leases. “It’s by the bed and the rental is all inclusive,” said Gilbane. “You bring a pillow and your bedding and you’re all set.”

The cost breaks down to about $2 per square foot. Each tenant in a three-bedroom suite, for example, will pay about $1,150 per month total.

The company locates its student-housing apartment strategically, within a few blocks of a campus border, to appeal to residents who walk or ride bicycles.

The basement of 257 Thayer Street, in fact, has underground storage for resident bikes.

The building was constructed after Gilbane purchased several contiguous properties from a single owner, demolishing nine buildings. Union Studio Architects prepared the external design, mimicking the appearance of roof lines down Thayer Street, to help blend the new facility into its neighborhood.

The apartment building has 95 suites. All of its tenants previously would have rented in older buildings, further from campus.

The completed facility has pre-leased 90 percent of its beds for the next year, Gilbane said, which is about the same level enjoyed by previous projects. “Every facility we are doing opens at 90 percent,” he said. •

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