San Diego State University to Build $1B Housing Complex
Universities in San Diego, a market where apartment rents have plateaued near record levels, are moving forward on massive housing projects to fill a gap in student housing.
In a major development, San Diego State University has unveiled plans to build a village of dormitory towers to house 5,220 students in the College Area, a neighborhood currently occupied by suburban homes.
The multi-phase project, one of the largest residential sites in the 23-campus California State University system, will increase SDSU’s housing capacity to 13,000.
SDSU is planning to build a village called Peninsula, including five apartment towers that are each 13 stories and a nine-story apartment building, on an 11-acre site on top of a hill on the northwest side of the campus. Another nine-story dormitory will be built on a 1.1-acre site next to an existing University Towers building.
SDSU said in a statement that the $1B project, the largest in the school’s history, is not designed to drive student enrollment but to fulfill current demands for student housing.
“The project is a necessary response to the region’s housing crisis and student demand and will provide students with financially accessible and sustainable housing options,” the SDSU statement said.
A column written by SDSU graduate Rene Kaprielian, published in the Union-Tribune last week, warned that the Peninsula housing project site is part of a “dangerous fire zone,” noting that a fast-moving brush fire swept through the canyon off Montezuma Road near SDSU on Oct. 31.
The wildfire came within 10 feet of homes on the canyon rim and caused hours-long traffic jams of residents trying to evacuate the area, Kaprielian said.
SDSU responded to the column with a statement that said the new housing complex “will feature Type I-B fire-resistant construction, new fire access roads and a 100-foot fire buffer zone.”
The plans from SDSU come as the University of California (UC) San Diego recently increased its housing capacity to 22,000, second nationwide only to UCLA. In September, UCSD delivered a 22-story tower and a 23-story tower at a student housing complex known as Pepper Canyon West.
UC San Diego has received 160,150 applications from prospective students seeking to enroll this fall, a new record and an increase of more than 3,000 from last year’s number, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Enrollment topped 44,000 last fall, a record that school officials project will grow to 50K by 2030.
In July, UCSD disclosed plans to build a $2B student housing village with six towers encompassing 6,000 beds on the eastern edge of the campus, doubling down on its housing construction binge.
Meanwhile, students at UCSD and SDSU have a difficult time finding affordable rentals in the neighborhoods surrounding the university campuses. The average monthly apartment rent in the La Jolla/University City submarket is $3,279, according to CBRE’s Q4 2024 market report, with a vacancy rate of 4%.
The average apartment rent in the San Diego metro was $2,800 in the fourth quarter. During the pandemic, the average rent in the San Diego market surged from $2,200 in Q1 2021 to more than $2,800 in Q3 2022, peaking at nearly $2,900 in Q3 2023.
Source: GlobeSt/ALM