The company’s proposal for the development, to be located near the Williams Building on Cumberland Avenue, was selected from six responses the university received to its call for ideas on how best to advance the goal of increasing its residence inventory. Richard Florizone, vice-president of finance and resources, said a public-private partnership, while new to the university, can address the critical issue of building rental accommodation that is affordable for both students and the institution.

“We’re really trying to push ourselves to be innovative and creative,” he said, “because we know that rental housing is very difficult to build. Rents just aren’t significant enough to cover the construction costs.”

The Meridian proposal demonstrated a strong understanding of the particular needs related to student housing, he said. Those included items like sustainability and the overall fit with the university environment.

“We want to deliver student housing,” said Florizone, “not just apartments.”

The U of S has not built any student residences for over 30 years and currently can house only about six per cent of its undergraduate population, a figure that is far below the national average. Adding the 200 units will not entirely close that gap, Florizone said, but “it will create a foundation for future phases of residence development.”

In a university news release issued Nov. 7, Colleen Wilson, a partner in Meridian, said the company was keen to work with the U of S. “We understand the pressures on students to find affordable housing in Saskatoon, and the university’s desire … to finance and build projects like this on its own.”

Florizone said negotiations have begun on defining the partnership with Meridian in terms of “who does what, who pays for what.” He did not rule out bringing in other partners like private donors or the provincial government but while the province “is broadly supportive of our efforts, if we can do this without government money, that would be great.”

While the timeline for the project is not finalized, “it will be a problem if we don’t have something in place for the fall of 2010. That means breaking ground next summer. It’s an increasing challenge to meet that goal but we can’t afford not to do this.”

Growing pressure on enrolment, “the lifeblood of the university,” raises the priority level of student housing even further, he said. With more universities competing for students, “we’re looking at all the levers we can pull to ensure our enrolment future, and housing is a really important one.” Campus residences have been shown to improve students retention, said Florizone, and are a “critical component of our out-of-province recruitment efforts.”

Asked about the university’s choice to spend money on housing when students are voicing concern over the prospect of having to pay higher tuition, Florizone said the question of what the university does with every dollar is very complex: “Do we put it toward scholarships, or campus safety, or use it as start-up funding for new faculty, or put it toward deferred maintenance which includes roofs that leak? If the question is housing versus tuition, I believe we’re in a reasonably competitive position with regard to tuition but we aren’t competitive on student housing.”

- On Campus News, Nov. 14-08