MINNEAPOLIS—The Opus Group just unveiled plans to develop and construct three residential apartment complexes near university campuses in Madison, WI, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Opus will partner with Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC, a Chicago-based real estate investment management firm, to deliver these projects.

“These are all in premier campus locations,” says Tom Shaver, president and CEO of the Minneapolis-based Opus Development Company, L.L.C. “We want to be as close to the campus as we can get. It's more expensive to develop, but safer for a long-term investment. All of these are consistent with our overall strategy.”

“Housing is one of the needs currently unmet by many universities, and unlike classrooms or labs, it's one of the needs that can be met by the private sector,” Shaver adds.

The Madison student housing project, called Varsity Quarters, will be a located directly adjacent to the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus and will total six stories with 162 beds. Opus will also develop about 7,000-square-feet of retail space on the ground level.

IVY on Fourteenth, the Milwaukee student housing complex, will also sit directly adjacent to the Marquette University campus. The six-story mixed-use development will have 165 beds and also have about 7,000-square-feet of ground floor retail. The Milwaukee office of Opus will manage the development and construction of both Wisconsin projects.

The Minneapolis student housing project will also bring additional living and retail options near the University of Minnesota campus. The six-story, 247-bed development will include 9,500-square-feet of ground floor retail space. The complex also will include underground parking and many amenities for its residents.

"They're all going to be heavily amenitized," Shaver says, and will include things like movie theaters, yoga rooms and stainless steel appliances, and other creature comforts once considered luxuries, but now considered essential for some schools.

“Parents are willing to pay for these amenities and want facilities that are also safe and secure,” he adds. “This is definitely a big market niche.”

“The newer off-campus housing costs twice as much as rent charged for older product,” says Ron Johnsey, president of Axiometrics Inc., a Dallas-based research firm that tracks the US apartment market. “Certainly, it's nice that there are options other than the run-down, bug-infested dumps that made up the off-campus housing before the newer stuff began to be built.”

But the student marketplace may have other niches that developers could fill, Johnsey adds. “Not everyone may be able to afford the highly amenitized student housing that is the norm on many campuses. As such, there could be plenty of room for more affordable options to be developed; student housing that provides a comfortable sleeping location, learning spaces and fewer amenities for less cost.”

Opus will begin construction on their three new projects this month with completion slated for August 2014 prior to the start of fall semesters.

Opus Development Company, L.L.C. will develop and Opus Design Build, L.L.C. will build all three projects. Eppstein Uhen Architects is the architect for the Madison project, Korb Tredo Architects will design the Milwaukee project, and Opus AE Group in partnership with Minneapolis-based Elness Swenson Graham Architects Inc., will design the Minneapolis project.