UCI students graduate into better homes

Alicia Robinson

The apartments in a new campus housing development feature views of

the San Joaquin Hills, cable and Internet hookups in the bedrooms,

and a highly precious commodity -- closet space.

Even the name, Palo Verde, sounds a little like a high-priced

condo project, but the apartments are part of a graduate student

housing community that nearly doubled in size when six new buildings

opened this fall. After a second phase of expansion is finished in

mid-2005, Palo Verde will include 652 apartments.

UC Irvine officials put in the development to address current

demand as well as to plan ahead, Palo Verde housing director Gerald

Parham said.

Graduate students may wait up to 18 months to get an apartment on

campus. With about 4,300 gradate students in a student body of

24,000, UCI is the fourth-largest campus of the nine in the UC

system.

The university spent about $78 million on the Palo Verde project,

but the rental costs there are moderate compared to housing elsewhere

in Orange County, Parham said.

Rents run from $685 for a studio in the older part of the

development to $1,650 for a three-bedroom unit in the expansion.

Those prices are about 20% to 30% below the rest of the market for

such large apartments, he said.

“Using it as a recruitment tool right now, I think, is going to

benefit the university, particularly because the cost of living [off

campus] is so extraordinary,” Parham said.

The brownish-orange stucco buildings were designed in a

Spanish-Mediterranean style to look more like private homes than

dorms, said Thomas Lim, a project architect at JBZ Architecture. The

Newport Beach firm designed the Palo Verde expansion.

“I think the demand is there for the more apartment-style housing

units in student housing as far as universities are concerned,” Lim

said. “Upperclassmen kind of demand that type of housing versus a

dorm-style on campus.”

Unlike some upscale apartment complexes, Palo Verde doesn’t have a

swimming pool or recreation center, but amenities like that drive

rents higher, Parham said. But the development does offer students

the convenience of being on campus.

“It’s very quiet, and it’s a little bit higher, so we have a

better view,” said Weichung Wang, 26, who was washing his clothes in

the communal laundry room last week.

A doctoral student in economics from Taiwan, Wang lived in Verano

Place -- the school’s other graduate housing community -- last school

year. Palo Verde is about $200 more expensive, he said, but he likes

being in a brand new building.

He thought about looking for apartments off campus, but he doesn’t

want to commute.

Also, he said, “the community wouldn’t be that good.”

UCI’s on-campus housing will probably remain viable based on the

climbing cost of living in Orange County. While many apartments are

available around Irvine, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach right now,

rents are high and not likely to fall any time soon, said Patrick

Verge, a manager at Westside Rental Connection.

Westside’s website lists one-bedroom apartments starting around

$900 a month in Costa Mesa -- the same price as one-bedroom units in

the Palo Verde expansion -- but most rents were upwards of $1,100 in

Newport-Mesa and Irvine.

The apartment market slows down around the holidays because people

don’t want to move then, Verge said.

“After Jan. 1, [rent] still [will keep] going up,” he said. “I

just don’t see it going down.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4626.