With enrollment stable, and the college’s dorms beyond 100 percent capacity, Allen County Community College trustees agreed Thursday to look into the feasability of building a new student housing facility.
Trustees unanimously agreed to hire an architect to draw up designs for a sixplex facility along White Boulevard.
The college previously received a zoning variance to build the units — capable of holding up to 24 students — from the city. The land is zoned for single family structures, while the six-plex would be considered a multi-family unit.
There remains much to be discussed, trustees agreed, as they look into the feasability of adding to the student housing.
Those in favor of building the structure point to the crowded dorms, which are certain to be exacerbated in future years as the college’s music and track/cross country programs are rebuilt. New teachers hired relatively late in the summer meant both programs featured only a fraction of the scholarships used as compared to past years.
The housing crunch was such that ACCC administrators stopped accepting housing applications from students weeks before the fall semester started. A handful found off-campus housing, while a few dorms still feature three beds instead of two, reported Randy Weber, vice president for student affairs.
Trustees’ earlier concerns about how adding student housing would affect the college cafeteria were put at bay after College President John Masterson relayed a recent conversation with administrators from Chartwell’s, ACCC’s food service provider.
“They agreed that adding 24 students wasn’t enough to upset the whole cart,” Masterson said.
Like students living in duplexes and in Masterson Hall, the sixplex students would not be granted full access to the cafeteria, Masterson noted. Rather, those students would receive a set number of meals a week to use at their choosing.
Some may choose to eat on weekends or for breakfast, Masterson said, spreading out the demand enough that Chartwell’s employees can keep up.
STILL, THERE are concerns about building a $750,000 housing unit.
Trustee Harvey Rogers asked about the added expense of hiring personnel to maintain the new dorms, while noting that college housing is always at its most crowded at the start of the school year. Through attrition, the number of students living on or near the campus will drop, especially for the spring semester.
“What I’d hate to see is us build this, then see five or six units empty through the year,” Rogers said.
Unlike private apartment complexes, it’s virtually impossible for the college to regain students living on campus.
Trustee Jim Talkington also expressed reservations about the college’s enrollment, which was down a fraction of a percent for the fall semester.
“It’s still down,” he said.
