The Capital of Student Housing

University City, Pa. may be one of the most active submarkets in the US. Brandywine Realty Trust, Campus Crest Communities (above, CEO Ted Rollins), and Harrison Street Real Estate Capital broke ground on a 33-story, 850-bed tower at Brandywine's Cira South development. (You may remember American Campus Communities has a project under construction there, too.) Ted tells us The Grove at Cira Centre South is the firm's first foray into urban high-rise development, which made partnering with Brandywine a perfect fit. Campus Crest wanted the feel of one of its suburban properties here, so design focused on areas students could congregate and lots of great spaces for life programming. It also wanted to incorporate its usual sustainable practices, so this will be LEED Gold. One neat feature: A green roof on the parking deck connecting this project to a future tower. (It's in design and will feature office and residential but no student housing.)

Here's the rendering of the Grove at Cira Centre South, which will sit at 30thand Chestnut on a site leased from the University of Pennsylvania. It'll cost $159M to build and is financed by a $98M loan through PNC Bank and Capital One. The JV expects to attract grad and undergrad students from nearby universities (including Penn and Drexel). Completion is set for fall '14, with leasing beginning this fall. Erdy McHenry handled design with Cira master planner Csar Pelli. Ted says Campus Crest has six properties totaling $163M under development for the '13 and '14 academic years to serve Colorado State, Ball State, Washington State, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, University of Oklahoma, and Penn State.