Integrating ground-level retail space with a student housing development

By Jeffrey M. Smith

Mixing off-campus housing with retail is revolutionizing the student housing landscape. Students value the shopping and dining opportunities, and university administrators are pleased when students do not venture too far from campus and lose touch with the university experience. When properly planned and designed, these developments can be a boon to enrollment.

In recent years, a remarkable transformation has occurred in off-campus student housing as developers work with colleges and universities to create residential facilities that support recruitment and retention, foster engagement and socialization, and provide a conducive environment for academic success. This trend has given rise to a surge in housing projects that embrace mixed-use concepts, and retail spaces are at the forefront of their design.

With retail spaces adjacent to campus, universities can activate the campus edge and provide a valuable amenity for their students. Students have access to a wide range of dining options and can socialize with their peers without traveling far from campus. The convenience and accessibility greatly enhance student life.

Integrating retail spaces in off-campus housing complements universities' efforts to create a vibrant campus environment. By expanding the scope of amenities available to students, these developments can be attractive selling points for prospective students and strengthen the university's commitment to providing a comprehensive living and learning experience.

Auburn University

Covering four acres, 320 West Mag is one of the largest student housing developments adjacent to the campus of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. The apartment complex, on the north edge of campus, was designed to create a thriving mix-use community. It has a multilevel fitness center, resort-style pool, coffee shop and tech center. But what really attracts students to the housing is the Chick-fil-A restaurant on the premises.

That the fast-food outlet would be a hit with students was no surprise. Chick-fil-A had operated at the site since 2003. However, its popularity caused traffic problems as cars waiting in the drive-thru would back up onto an adjacent street. The developer acquired the existing restaurant site, assembled adjacent parcels, and set out to create a 4.16-acre, 719-bed community that reincorporated the restaurant into the ground floor along with an additional 7,685 square feet of commercial space.

With Chick-fil-A essentially grandfathered in as a first-floor tenant, the layout had a significant effect on the design of the building. Chick-fil-A's main concern was to avoid the traffic problems prevalent in the restaurant’s previous iteration. Because the student housing building had access on all four sides, the project team worked to gain access to the restaurant’s drive-thru window from Thomas Street on the west side and a secondary entrance on the east side. These requirements mainly drove the internal housing layout and the location of the parking deck.

The design of 320 West Mag responded specifically to the restaurant's design requirements. Planners knew precisely how many vehicles the drive-thru would need to accommodate, and the team dedicated most of the west side of the building to the drive-thru to eliminate any probability of traffic jams in all directions. Successfully integrating a ground-floor drive-thru presented several challenges. The development team had to accommodate the restaurant's kitchen, service, trash, and parking requirements and respond to the city’s desire to access the drive-thru via Thomas Street.

Consideration also had to be made for large trucks. The solution was a long, continuous ramp that accommodates two lanes where customers enter on the high side of the site along Thomas Street and gently ramp down to the order kiosks. This enables 27 cars to queue inside the parking deck before ordering.

Environmental and safety concerns related to fumes from idling vehicles in the drive-thru were also addressed. In addition, the design had to address many specific adjacency requirements for these building types, such as the pass-through window being a certain distance from the service door.

With two corners of the development occupied by a Subway restaurant and a university-owned parking lot, the designers set out to vertically connect all the amenities for the residents, including the retail area, into the first two levels of the building. The residential units were built around three separate elevated courtyards. The design provides several access points to the outdoor courtyards and many units with views of the outdoor amenity areas.

When mixing residential with retail, security and safety must always be at the forefront of all design decisions so that non-resident customers of the retail space do not have access to the private living units. At the same time, the design team wanted to create a sense of community for residents by including common areas where students can gather. A coffee shop serves as a hospitality lobby. The outdoor pool, fitness center, and study areas are at the podium level. The club and fitness spaces look out over a pool, which is 16 feet up and has great views of the university. There are also beautiful, inviting, study areas.

Atlanta amenities

The Standard at Atlanta – a mixed-use development for students attending Georgia Tech and Georgia State – provides another example of how enhancing the ground-floor experience of a university housing development can promote connectivity.

At 19 stories, The Standard has 257 furnished residential units along with 10,783 square feet of commercial space. Included among its many amenities is a Starbucks coffee shop with drive-thru lanes.

Often, project designers have to shoehorn retailers into a multilevel building constructed above them. Many of these projects in urban settings have similar challenges with retailers on the project site, so project teams often make them part of the new building as a condition for incorporating their land.

Unlike on-campus sites where retailers rely primarily on student walk-up traffic, these urban projects often require that the building have ground-level retail on the street front facades. When this occurs, project designers are responsible for the retailer’s mechanical and structural issues, such as intake and exhaust. To address city requirements related to active use at street frontages, the project team has additional conditions to consider regarding mechanical system intake and exhaust, as well as servicing, which often need special design solutions to harmonize with the residential program design above.

As the competition for students becomes increasingly competitive, forward-looking university and development leaders are finding that housing is a critical area for building and retaining enrollment. Schools can enhance socialization and engagement, while keeping students on campus, by providing the amenities and accommodating the features they value most. Dynamic, pedestrian-friendly communities are essential to expanding a vibrant campus life, and that goal can be achieved by making retail a reality.

Jeffrey M. Smith, AIA, LEED AP, is Vice President with Niles Bolton Associates. He can be reached at [email protected].