By Josh Siatkowski | Staff Writer
Even if you moved off-campus, there’s still a good chance Baylor owns your home.
With 11 different off-campus apartment complexes and dozens of individual homes in its real estate portfolio, Baylor houses far more than the 39% of students who live on campus, and the number is growing.
“One of the strategies for taking ownership of those apartments … is to bring value to the Baylor students at the end of the day, meaning that our plans to keep them up and make them functional,” Baylor Chief Financial Officer Curtis Reynolds said. “And in turn, we’re controlling the price, keeping the cost of living down for Baylor students.”
Of Baylor’s 11 off-campus apartment complexes, four of them — Browning Square, Pinetree, The Quadrangle and Speight-Jenkins Apartments — are for graduate students only. The other seven — University Plaza, Jamestown Apartments, Baylor Plaza III, University Parks, The Arbors, University Place and Fairmont Apartments — are not limited to a specific demographic. The McLennan County Assessor lists the combined value of the properties at over $80 million.
But beyond this, the university also owns “various single-family residences used for student housing,” according to Angie McGregor, senior director of campus services and real estate. The County Assessor lists over 50 single-family home lots in Baylor’s name.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many Baylor-owned off-campus units exist, but the real estate office said there are over 500.
According to Reynolds and McGregor, there are multiple benefits to Baylor’s residential real estate portfolio, from both the students’ and the university’s perspective.
On Baylor’s side, owning property near campus helps by ensuring Baylor does not “find itself in a landlocked position,” Reynolds said in reference to the fact that Baylor is somewhat constricted by I-35 on its west side and La Salle Avenue on the east.
While there’s almost certainly a revenue-enhancing component to the ownership, McGregor said that “the primary goal is to provide close-to-campus, affordable student housing options.” This mission, McGregor and Reynolds said, is why Baylor’s large market share is a valuable part of student life. Only if this portfolio were to fall into the hands of a for-profit company would it become a dangerous monopoly.
“We think that if [the apartments] were in the private market, then investors would run those prices up and make affordability challenging for students,” Reynolds said.
Regarding the new 300-unit apartment complex set to go up next year on Seventh and James Baptist Church’s current lot, Reynolds said, “We hope they don’t drive the price point up so high that students just can’t afford to live there.”
Baylor’s student housing complexes are notably cheaper than major developments like U Pointe and Park Place. University-owned residences come in around $600-800 per month, while larger complexes can charge above $1,000 per person for 2-bedroom units. But much of this disparity is because Baylor’s residences are older, smaller and have fewer amenities than their counterparts. On the other hand, though, these residences still serve a purpose: if they were converted by a developer into luxury apartments, many students could be priced out.
Reynolds also said the upkeep and functionality of the units was also a priority, saying that the maintenance “brings value to Baylor students.”
For this management, McGregor said the university contracts two companies: Austin-based Granite Properties of Texas, and the well-known Brothers Management, which has built up a list of some unsatisfied student residents over the years.
Whether Baylor’s ownership of all of this real estate is positive or negative is up to the resident, and that opinion changes based on students’ experiences in a Baylor-owned unit. But for better or worse, the portfolio will most likely keep growing. While Reynolds said it was not a specific strategy to buy up student housing complexes, the university routinely assesses properties that become available, including the recently sold Seventh and James acreage.
