CHICAGO—The Opus Group in partnership with The Carlyle Group has just started construction on a new 14-story student living community on the edge of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. Demand for new luxury student housing like this has been quite robust for several years, but company officials say subtle changes are underway in the sector, and developers need to offer more than simple luxury.
“Students are no longer interacting socially or intellectually in the same way,” Ben Angelo, senior director, real estate development, Opus Development Co., LLC, tells GlobeSt.com. Much like millennials in the workplace, today's students now want to have a range of spaces for communal use. Opus has designed much of this project's amenity space with that in mind.
And developers are choosing creature comforts more carefully these days. “Years ago, we just tried to create as many amenities as we could,” Angelo says. But observation showed that many of these perks, such as tanning beds, went out of favor.
In addition to 218 individual living spaces, the building's shared amenities will include a coffee bar, group study rooms and lounges that provide additional spaces for students to gather on the third floor. The fourth floor will feature a club room with pool tables, ping pong tables and large screen TVs leading to an outdoor amenity space with a pool, fire pits and grilling stations. Opus also places a lot of emphasis on fitness, and will include an indoor basketball court, fitness center and spa on the second floor.
In many ways, the heavy emphasis on communal space mirrors changes going on in both the office and hospitality sectors, Angelo adds. Hotels, for example, now want guests to interact with one another, and the design of gathering spaces is taken more seriously. “There is a lot more attention paid to what's happening outside the hotel room.”
The Urbana-Champaign project will include a range of units, from junior studios to four-bedroom units with private bathrooms for each bedroom, for a total of 548 bedrooms.
Opus began construction on the in December, and will complete it prior to the 2019 fall academic semester. Opus Development Co., LLC is the developer, Opus Design Build, LLC is the design builder and Opus AE Group, LLC is the architect and structural engineer of record. Tempe, AZ-based Creative License International is the interior designer for the project. Cardinal Group will lease and manage the property.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
