Are Student Housing Amenities For The Birds?

Make no mistake, the Atlanta Braves' loss is going to be Georgia State University's gain.

Carter's David Nelson is working on the massive Turner Field redo for the university. He says for GSU, the acquisition of the The Ted “doubles the size of the campus” overnight while the Braves head to Cobb County. With the goal to put as much of GSU's athletic department at the stadium site, Carter says it will reduce the seating to 30,000, a decline of nearly 20,000 seats.

While GSU plans to open its football season this coming fall there, David says, long term, the university also wants to use it for baseball.

David was part of a lineup of development pros at our University Development and Student Housing event that included CBRE's Bill Lefler (who moderated), Gateway Development's David Tyndall, Kennesaw State University's Mark Lawson, EdR's Rodney King and Corvias' Jimmy Scott (above).

When talking about amenities, Jimmy says off-campus developers don't attempt to compete with on-campus housing. Instead, he says Corvias focuses on amenities that will assist students in their studies, including technology, which is very critical to student housing operators.

“Students these days wouldn't care if the walls were falling in around them as long as they had their WiFi and laundry services,” he quipped.

Tyndall says things like rooftop pools, game rooms and lounges tend to be more for the brochures than actually used by students.

“There's a lot of fantasy they use those amenities for,” Tyndall says. Instead, Gateway sees its mentoring program and service projects as much more popular.