UB Plans Third Student Apartment Complex

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo has announced plans for a third new complex of student apartments, tentatively set for occupancy in August 2000.

Details of the project on the south shore of Lake LaSalle on the North (Amherst) Campus were announced at the March 8 meeting of the UB Council, the university's local governing body.

Calling the demand for on-campus housing "intense," Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs, presented plans for South Lake Village, which would house 400-700 students in a mix of studio and one-to-three bedroom apartments.

UB already has circulated a request for proposals for the design of the complex, which would be developed privately as a joint project of the university, the UB Foundation, Inc., and the UB Alumni Association.

The alumni association's involvement is key because a clause in the state education law allows the SUNY trustees to work with alumni associations to develop housing on SUNY campuses.

UB administrators hope to receive ground-lease approvals from SUNY and have building designs, a financing plan and construction bids in hand by this summer for a possible July groundbreaking and occupancy by August 2000.

South Lake Village would be the third residential complex for UB students built in recent years. Flickinger Court, townhouses for 400 graduate students located on Chestnut Ridge Road adjacent to the North Campus, opened in August 1998.

Hadley Village, the first housing built on campus in nearly 25 years, will open this August for juniors and seniors. Black told council members that the complex is 100 percent "preleased" and that all 620 beds in the complex "sold out before there was a model (apartment) to look at."

Progress on Hadley Village, also located on the UB North Campus, can be monitored via the UB Webcam Web site, at http://webcam.buffalo.edu.