Right At Home At HCC

TAMPA - As college dorm life goes, this place is posh: deluxe kitchen, washer and dryer, inclusive cable access and high-speed Internet.

Although such amenities are proliferating at apartments near four-year universities, you typically won't find them at a community college. In that sense, developers say, Hillsborough Community College is a pioneer.

On Thursday, HCC officials showed off their newly built apartments, which opened this week to students at the college's Dale Mabry campus.

No other Florida community college offers on-campus living, and developers say that few others do nationwide.

But the interest was great among HCC students, administrators say. And the developer, Atlanta-based Place Properties, found a market among students who want a four-year university experience at a community college.

The apartment complex, at the southwest corner of the campus, can house 420 students at prices below the market rate.

The complex partly made the difference in choosing HCC over St. Petersburg College for first-year student Aurora Clegg. Clegg, a St. Petersburg resident who moved into her new apartment Wednesday, was accepted to the University of South Florida. But with a scholarship, she will pay no tuition at HCC.

"I want the four-year experience, and I don't want to worry about the money," said Clegg, who shares a four-bedroom apartment and pays $505 a month for her own bedroom and bathroom.

Place Properties makes a living running housing for college and university students nationwide. But the complex at HCC, named Hawks Landing, is the company's first venture into a community college.

HCC surveyed its students about two years ago and found that hundreds wanted on-campus housing.

Place Properties Chief Executive Officer Cecil Phillips said he knows of only two other community colleges with on-campus living, one in Illinois and the other in Washington.

State law prohibits Florida's community colleges from owning housing on campus, but that prohibition doesn't apply to a school's foundation.

Last year, the college leased a 7-acre parcel of land to the HCC Foundation, which arranged with Place Properties to build the housing.

The developer financed construction through bonds, not with public money, Phillips said. Place Properties collects development and management fees from a bank trust that collects the rents.

Monthly rates run from $505 for each student willing to share a four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment to $777 for a one-bedroom apartment with a pool view.

The amenities found at the apartments are increasingly in demand at privately run university housing nationwide, Phillips said. The apartments are fully furnished - including couch, bed and bar stools - with 9-foot ceilings, and the complex has a fitness center and clubhouse.

One difference from a standard apartment is that there will be an on-site academic adviser for students, said Bob Chunn, president of HCC's Dale Mabry campus. The adviser already works on the Dale Mabry campus but will keep office hours at the apartments.

About 50 percent of the apartments have been leased, Phillips said. He expects them to fill by June.

There are no plans yet to expand housing to HCC's other campuses, but that may change depending on the success at the Dale Mabry complex, Chunn said.

All of the one-bedroom apartments have been rented. One of them went to first-year student Paschall Glover, 17, who celebrated her freedom this week in her own apartment and her freedom from the half-hour long trip to school from her mother's home in Riverview.

"The gas price was killing me," Glover said.