Yeah, there are some student rentals in “missing middle” formats (townhouses and small-lot single family) appearing west of campus. Turns out that preferences for large THs in the zoning code match up nicely with the 3-4-5BR student housing format.
At the time that the Redpoint/Republic apartments were being built, the parking requirement for a 4BR apartment was 4.4 spaces – but a 4BR townhouse required 2. Guess which format makes more sense?
When done by a competent architect, the results can be pretty good. Here’s one near Auburn:
A not as nice version of that would be where I stayed my sophomore year at NC State. We had a 4 bed/4 bathroom place all around 1400 square feet. There was no garage parking but a ton of assigned space/street parking in the complex.
But they’re townhomes - so they’d be selling to either investors or parents (also investors in a way) who are going to then rent out to students by the room?
My guess is they are not student oriented and they’ll be in the 600-800 range.
There were a ton of these in College Station, Tx. Several blocks in fact. They were replacing small SFH’s blocks from campus. These were 5 & 6 bedroom places, even though because of the old bordello laws, only 4 single women can live together, lol. It was a good use of space and made for one of the few walkable areas I found in the sprawl that surrounded TAMU.
Fair - Chapel Hill actually has (or, had? not sure if changed) the same law in place. Back in undergrad we had a 6 BR house but were only legally allowed to have 4 on the lease, and the town would go around and count how many cars you had in the driveway to make sure it wasn’t more than 4.
Even if it isn’t, there are going to be so many students living there it effectively will become that. The NCSU student population is growing to the point where there isn’t anywhere to put students, not just on campus but even close to campus. There is definitely a need for more places to put students close to campus, so I imagine that’s what this will become.
Totally agree, there needs to be more housing both inside AND adjacent to Centennial Campus.
The corner of Varsity and Avent Ferry should be an activity node, for example. There was a 5 over 1 apartment complex planned there several years ago but the Council of No nixed it.
Fun fact, my great grandparents house used to be on that corner lot. The land was sold after my great grandmother passed away in the late 90’s. I can’t remember if my grandparents sold it to NC State or to someone else.
