Anyone who has been to the University of Arizona campus and turned their head west knows that the university is neighbored by a towering community of high-rise apartments which many students call home. Built along Speedway Boulevard, their shiny veneer and trendy names that you might expect from some new Silicon Valley startup charm people from great distances. Their websites include flashy designs and pictures of happy people enjoying the various amenities that modern-style living has to offer. They also put emphasis on their proximity to many of the university’s key locations, like the UA Main Library, the UA Mall and the Arizona stadium. On the surface, these apartments have the air about them that makes them a fine place for students to spend their college days. It feels like there are more and more all the time, with new construction projects taking root right next to the currently standing ones.
All this comes with a hefty price tag, however. The websites for oLiv Tucson and Hub on Campus list their price range as between $1,400 and $2,300 per month, just for a starting rate. The Parker Tucson includes similar prices for their floor plans. Aspire Tucson has cleverly listed their cheapest studio apartment, meaning that it is only made up of a single room plus a bathroom, at “from $1,995,” which looks much less alarming to the eye than it would if you added just $5 to that number.
With such a large variety of names on the towers, someone who is looking for a place to live that is close to campus might expect these names to compete with one another by offering lower prices, yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. Why does this competition not seem to not have an impact on price? It’s because there isn’t as much competition as you would expect when it comes to these high-rises. If you browse the websites of these places and scroll past the fancy graphics, you’ll see a recurring logo at the very bottom.
Many of the high-rises that you see on campus, including the aforementioned oLiv Tucson, Hub on Campus and The Parker Tucson, are not each owned by separate entities competing with one another to be the top choice for students, but are actually just a few of the student housing complexes managed by Core Spaces, a company that builds, owns and operates built-to-rent spaces across the country, with a particular interest in providing housing for college students.
Core Spaces owns six complexes in Tucson, which is more than they own in any other city in the country, in addition to four additional properties in the state of Arizona. They also have their management logo slapped on the websites of complexes they do not own, such as The Parker Tucson. This is the same story that we see all across the country as we remain faced with a widespread housing crisis that many Americans struggle to make ends meet in.
When a single company has so much control over the properties nearest to the UA because there is no competition, it becomes difficult for students to find cheap and convenient housing while they manage the high costs of living and tuition. This is a challenge in itself when you have to juggle the responsibilities of education as well. With this in mind, lots of students have to look for other apartment complexes that have lower rent but are farther away from campus, meaning that these students will have to reach their classes by foot, bus, bike, car or whatever means are available to them. This need for transportation poses an obstacle and an inconvenience to people that living in the high-rises does not include.
However, there is still another option available to college students who are seeking a place to live that is close to what campus has to offer, but is more affordable than the high-rises: dorms. The UA provides 23 dorms for students, with the rent for the full academic year ranging from $7,090 to $10,320 for a double-occupancy room, all fees included. Compared to the monthly rates for the high-rises that hide their utilities and fees, this university-provided option allows for more affordability while also being accessible to campus. Dorms also, by design, can’t lock a resident into any sort of lease that ties them into paying rent during summer months when they might not even be in town.
I’m a former resident of the Manzanita-Mohave Residence Hall on the northwest part of campus, and I can attest that it isn’t luxurious living, but it allowed myself and many others before and since to live within walking distance of the university’s classrooms and everything else that campus has to offer while also providing housing that wasn’t as expensive as many of the alternatives. The worst part about living there was the fact that I was repeatedly woken up at 5:30 a.m. by the sound of construction work for the high-rise apartments just across the street.
However, the number of dorm rooms is limited. For students who don’t apply for a dorm space early enough or transfer part way through the academic year, living in a dorm just might not be an option. This is not made any easier by the fact that the UA seems to have no interest in any new student housing options. Since the Honors Village opened in 2019 there has been no expansion in university-offered housing, and the Honors Village is both only accessible to honors students and more expensive than most dorm options.
College campuses are designed to be easily accessible for students, and the right to reasonably-priced housing that students can travel to and from with a short walk should not be limited to those with the ability to pay for a pricey apartment. If more dorms with a reasonable rent were available, then more students could have the same opportunity and accessibility to their university that those in the existing dorms and the high-rises do. Instead of allowing the market to become more and more cornered by companies like Core Spaces, universities like ours should seek to expand their own housing options so that students can choose closer and more affordable places and be saved from the metallic modern building style in favor of our university’s trademark red-brick look.
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Ian Stash is a junior studying Journalism at the University of Arizona. In his free time, he loves video games and chilling with his cats.
