AUSTIN, TX-American Campus Communities Inc. has established a foothold with two major East Coast universities, Drexel University in Philadelphia and Princeton University in New Jersey. The student housing REIT made the announcement as part of its second quarter earnings results.
Drexel University selected ACC to develop a $90-million, mixed-use development using the REIT’s American Campus Equity program. The project, which will contain about 850 beds, 26,600 square feet of retail space and a 265-space commercial parking garage, is expected to break ground during the first quarter 2012 and is scheduled for completion in August 2013.
Meanwhile, Princeton University chose ACC to serve as third-party developer for an on-campus student housing project. For several months, the REIT had been working with the university to determine whether the project would be funded through ACC’s equity program or university capital.
Princeton decided to self-fund the project given the school’s existing debt capacity, according to ACC’s CEO Bill Bayless. The project’s size and scope is still in the planning stages, but is likely to break ground during the first quarter 2013.
“We continue to be very pleased with the caliber of institutions [that are issuing RFPs to third-party developers],” Bayless said during the REIT’s earnings conference call. He pointed out that interest is no longer limited to secondary, smaller institutions; he says “mainstream, tier I institutions” are issuing RFPs for third-party developers.
Bayless said ACC currently is working on 11 active RFPs. Seven of those schools are interested in using ACC’s equity to develop student housing projects and four are seeking third-party developers. “We continue to see interest in our ACE program, and our third-party development business is picking up steam,” he noted.
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