Fund to Develop North Carolina Student Housing

Place Properties L.P. of Atlanta and Blue Vista Capital Management L.L.C. of Chicago will break ground in about a month on a student housing project at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke. The development will be the first one funded by a $205 million equity fund established recently by the two companies, with other institutional investment partners, for the purpose of developing and acquiring student housing.

The project, called Pembroke Place, will consist of 84 units and 336 beds. The residence will be completed in the summer of 2007, in time for students to move in at the beginning of the fall term, according to the developers.

"The appeal of investing in student housing is that more people than ever are graduating from high school," Peter Stelian, managing principal of Blue Vista, told CPN this morning. "It's the echo baby boom. Also, a higher percentage of these kids will be going on to college, up from less than half of high school graduates 25 years ago to about 60 percent today."

As for the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, which is located in the south-central part of the state near the border with South Carolina, Stelian said that school is growing, too. "We acquired a good site for the project adjacent to campus, and the demand for the housing is there," he noted.

The partners are hardly strangers to the student housing business. Place Properties has developed more than $470 million of student housing properties since 1996 and currently manages more than 9,000 beds, while Blue Vista has made investments in more than 6,600 student housing beds at nine universities since 2003.