MU deals with housing crunch

Facing a housing shortage on campus, the University of Missouri has for the third year in a row leased units at two privately owned apartment complexes to provide nearly 600 extra rooms for students.
As classes begin next week, university officials anticipate housing the largest class of  freshmen on record. The apartments available for MU students at the complexes in south Columbia, Tiger Diggs and Mizzou Quads, are already full.
The university has found additional housing for students in a vacant residence hall on the Stephens College campus.
Tiger Diggs is the collection of student housing located at Campus View, 301 Campus View Drive, and Mizzou Quads is located at Campus Lodge, 2900 S. Old Highway 63. The two complexes were predominately student-occupied before the university began purchasing one-year leases with them in 2008. This year, the university signed a $1.4 million lease for Tiger Diggs, which provides 340 units, and a $1.1 million lease for Mizzou Quads, which provides 240 units.
The lease agreement with Stephens College, which will provide beds for more than 100 students, was $120,000.
Frankie Minor, director of MU’s Department of Residential Life, said the university had not initially planned to use the 340 beds at Campus View, but then the applications for the upcoming year started rolling in. More than 6,000 freshmen have enrolled, several hundred more than last year, and MU requires them to live in dorms or university-contracted apartments.
The availability of units at the university’s residence halls has been in flux, compounding the housing crunch. Two residence halls near University Hospital were closed permanently to make way for an expansion of the hospital, and another that will provide about 420 beds will be closed for renovations until next fall.
And as of last week, there were 6,975 housing contracts either signed or expected to be submitted by students. To help free up space, on-campus housing for returning students was capped at 1,900, and financial incentives have been offered to students to opt out of their housing contracts with the university.
“For the last 16 years, we’ve been able to accommodate all freshmen and returning students,” Minor said. “This year is a little different.”
The students who live at Tiger Diggs and Mizzou Quads will live alongside students at Campus View and Campus Lodge who are considered to be living off campus, but their living expenses are billed differently. University police have taken the role of first responders for both complexes, which are located just south of campus. Mizzou Quads is restricted to returning students, but freshmen can live in Tiger Diggs.
Students living in the extended housing sign 10-month housing contracts through the university and are provided furnished, four-bedroom units. Students at Mizzou Quads pay $6,445, and those at Tiger Diggs pay $5,445. Utilities are included in the rate charged to Mizzou Quads residents, but Tiger Diggs residents pay their own utilities. Those students are also required to buy meal plans with the university, which range in cost from $2,000 to more than $3,800.
Rates for students considered to be living off campus at Campus Lodge range from $524 to $544 for the four-bedroom, four-bathroom units, which measure 1,509 square feet. At Campus View, residents in four-bedroom, two-bathroom units each pay $310 a month for rent.
Minor said the two complexes were chosen by the university in 2008 because of their access to city bus routes and because the units came furnished. He also said in the spring of 2008, the two complexes had a combined vacancy of 700 beds.
“I think they were happy to see us come through the door,” Minor said.
In 2009, the university solicited bids to apartment complexes for extended housing, Minor said, and Campus View, Campus Lodge and one other complex submitted bids. The university decided to contract again with Campus View and Campus Lodge because the other complex did not have furnished units, Minor said.