Harrison Street, Radnor to Build Employee Housing at NC University
The firms have formed a public-private partnership with Appalachian State University to develop staff housing at the college’s Boone campus.
PeakMade Real Estate added private study rooms to The Filmore near Appalachian State last year. Image Courtesy of PeakMade Real Estate
Harrison Street and Radnor Property Group have formed a public-private partnership with Appalachian State University to build 156 units of employee housing within the Innovation District at the university’s Boone, N.C., campus.
The joint venture calls for Harrison Street and Radnor Property Group to finance the university’s first on-campus employee housing project under a 501c3 ownership structure to enhance affordability. The five multi-story buildings are slated for delivery by the fall of 2025.
The 175,000-square-foot project will build attainably priced housing for university faculty and staff amid housing scarcity and cost inflation in the region. The employee housing community will be part of a larger first phase of the university’s Innovation District, which is aiming for net zero carbon emissions. The university wants the project to create at least as much energy as it consumes through renewable sources as App State begins to transition its campus away from steam power. Part of the University of North Carolina system, App State enrolls more than 21,000 students at its Boone and Hickory, N.C., campuses and online.
David Yeager, managing partner of Wayne, Pa.,-based Radnor Property Group, said in a prepared statement the employee housing development is a component of Radnor’s master developer role for the first phase of the Innovation District in Boone. In addition to the staff housing, the first phase will include a 55,000-square-foot interdisciplinary research facility and a carbon-zero district energy system.
P3 projects
Jim Hennessy, managing director and head of PPP development at Harrison Street, said in prepared remarks that the Chicago-based firm is continuously seeking to broaden its network of university partnerships.
Radnor, which specializes in student housing, multifamily and mixed developments, has worked with Harrison Street on other P3 projects. In December 2022, Duquesne University in Pittsburgh announced its third on-campus housing development from a public-private partnership with Harrison Street and Radnor. The most recent project there is a 556-bed student apartment community next to the University Power Center. The 11-story, 216-apartment community will house upper class and graduate students and is slated for delivery by fall 2024. The earlier Duquesne projects were the modernization of Brottier Hall and the renovation of St. Martin Hall, both of which were completed in 2022.
