<p>Similar to East Edge arrangement last year, UA Housing is offering The Lofts at City Center as a housing alternative for the 2013-2014 school year:</p>
<p>"…HRC will lease a small number of spaces at the Lofts at City Center, a new apartment complex under construction 2 miles from campus on McFarland Blvd., across from Krispy Kreme. Students who live in these spaces through HRC will be considered campus residents and will be under the HRC housing contract…The Lofts consists of four bedroom/four bathroom apartments…The rate for the Lofts is $4400/semester, with a summer rate of $2200. Because these spaces are managed by the University, housing scholarships can be used there by students who have them. Students who lease directly through the Lofts cannot use their scholarships. …"</p>
<p>Doesn’t surprise me, but with the Lofts being brand new and not finished, I wonder if Bama is going to be on them like White on Rice to avoid last year’s issues.</p>
<p>I would assume that this is primarily for students with housing scholarships, right? Wouldn’t it be less expensive for anyone else to rent directly from The Lofts?</p>
<p>Where did this announcement come from? DS hasn’t seen an email and I looked on the UA housing website and didn’t see anything announcing the Lofts.</p>
<p>I can’t answer where it came from but I did contact housing to ask some questions. If my son and his RMs were to stay together and move to the Lofts, son and RM not on housing scholarship would have to pay the increased rate. Also, UA does not have the details in place of how many units they are going to contract for and cannot guarantee RM matching. If your student is interested though have them contact housing to get on the list.</p>
<p>My s is going to live at the lofts next year . It is going to be beautiful with a huge pool in the middle of the complex. They are building phase 2 and that will have restaurants and retail in the front. The crimson ride will be on a schedule going back and forth to the campus. Apartment will have living room furniture, granite and stainless Steel appliances and lamanent floors. You can rent bedroom furniture for a small fee.</p>
<p>Does anyone else think the timing of this announcement stinks? I know of a few students who gave up their housing scholarships and signed for off campus housing because they wanted to remain with roommates who were moving off campus. Love UA but this just didn’t seem fair.</p>
<p>^ Agreed - odd timing for this.
Am I correct in remembering that UA gave up the East Edge deal for NMFs this past year, and forced them back on campus (if they wanted to continue to receive housing scholarship), and now they are offering this different deal at Lofts? I can only assume that there is just way more demand/need for on-campus housing + housing for scholarships than was previously estimated a mere month or two ago.<br>
Just curious if any student who gave up their housing scholarship (to live off campus) has ever tried to get it back (in subsequent years)?</p>
<p>I agree that it was odd for UA to not mention that they were seeking a contract for off-campus housing. A CC poster did find the official request for bids for said housing posted on a public records portion of the UA website. HRC has known for many months that there was a proposal to lease off-campus housing during the 2013-2014 academic year, but didn’t know if any bids would be submitted, let alone selected.</p>
<p>The correct thing for UA to do is to pay the cancellation fees for the already purchased off-campus housing for any student with a housing scholarship who wishes to live in the UA-contracted rooms in the Lofts. UA probably doesn’t legally have to do this, but there were many official and unofficial messages sent out stating that the contract with East Edge would not be renewed and that no UA-contracted off campus housing would be available for the 2013-2014 academic year. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if one has or did have a housing scholarship and wishes to live in a UA-contracted room in the Lofts; they should contact HRC immediately.</p>
<p>Is UA planning to bring in RA’s and try to enforce HRC rules at the Lofts? It was one thing to do so at East Edge where the rooms were self-contained in a certain building, but these rooms are going to be scattered all over the complex. Furthermore, I know of many students that specifically chose the Lofts (some giving up housing scholarships) to get away from this type environment and to assert their independence. I agree that the timing is unfortunate, both for those that contracted with the Lofts for a certain environment and those that may have given up a housing scholarship with the understanding that there would be no UA-contracted off campus housing.</p>
<p>I would guess that the timing is as it is because UA simply didn’t know for certain earlier that this option would be there. Obviously (from the fact that bids were out) they knew it was a possibility, but there’d be a bigger outcry if it had been promised early and didn’t materialize. I can’t imagine that they timed it this way to screw the housing scholarship recipients. With the school growing as it is, it has to be hard to accurately estimate housing need. The alternative would have been to guess wrong the other way and not allow as many rising sophomores to recontract. People would have been upset about that, too.</p>
<p>As for housing scholarship students who gave up their scholarships to live with friends, they wouldn’t have been able to live with friends in the HRC-leased units at The Lofts, either. It’s unfortunate that kids gave up their scholarships without full knowledge of what was going to happen, but frankly, I’m more disappointed that the “guarantee” to stay on campus for 4 years if you were in a living-learning community went by the wayside. I hope the completion of Presidential II takes some stress off the system.</p>
<p>Bama certainly wouldn’t be enforcing HRC rules on the entire Lofts complex. Those who are renting directly thru the Lofts will be treated just like anyone renting at the Lofts. Certainly there can be non-Bama renters at the Lofts, so certainly no rules would be on them as well.</p>
<p>However, Bama will have certain responsibilities for those using housing contracts at the Lofts, and will likely have RAs for those students. However, the rules will not likely be like HRC rules. My son used his housing scholarship at the Bluff and although there was an RA, no one saw that person except for move out time. There were no “rules” enforced during the school year. Students even had pets there. </p>
<p>I don’t think Bama has any obligation to “buy out contracts” of students who’ve chosen to go elsewhere, give up their housing scholarships, etc. Businesses who are “exploring options” are under no obligation to actually go thru with those options. So, just because Bama had bids out there, that may have been for a “just in case” situation, and they now realize that that needs to happen. </p>
<p>If Bama hadn’t had bids out there for a “just in case” situation and had run short, everyone would have been complaining that Bama hadn’t used foresight and precautions to avoid a possible problem. For all we know, Bama routinely sends out bids EVERY year just in case a residence hall burns down or whatever, and add’l housing is needed.</p>
<p>My D gave up her scholarship based on housing assurance that there would be NO OFF CAMPUS usage of scholarships at ANY facility and that if she wanted to live in apartment style housing she could move to German House or the other facility on campus … period. She met personally with VP of housing and VP of scholarships. She worked very hard to gather all the information she could before we made this difficult decision. I am very disappointed given that I find it VERY hard to believe the UA did not know that they were in negotiations with the Lofts and that they could have communicated that they were in the process of negotiating without making any promises. They chose to communicate personally and via electronic messages that there would be NO off campus usage of scholarships. My D feels that she was lied to, or at least definitely misled. She will be calling housing and scholarships today. This is VERY frustrating!</p>
<p>Businesses can be “exploring options” but businesses should also be ethical about it. Telling students that in no way, shape or form will there be any chance for them to use housing scholarship $ to live off campus and then changing the rules just isn’t right. Just as telling parents of incoming honors college students that those students could choose to remain in campus housing for as long as desired and then changing policy isn’t right. I don’t think either of these issues were done maliciously but I do think that it isn’t fair to change the rules arbitrarily.</p>
<p>As for students staying together with this new change, housing told me it is possible but that the non-housing scholarship students would have to pay the premium rate to make this happen.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree. Given what has transpired, they could have communicated that there was some chance that a new contract would be put in place with an off campus location … not even saying where, just that it was possible. Given that information, we may have chosen to re-contract and wait to see what transpired. My D is concerned that WE are upset with her because of this. We specifically stayed out of this to allow her to do the research and discover her options on her own and present them back to us. Time to start letting go a little, right? Even though we shoulder the financial impact. UA should make this right!</p>
<p>That’s a different story. I’ll be interested to hear how your daughter makes out. How is she asking UA to make it right? I assume she can’t just break the lease at East Edge and move to the Lofts. And her friends wouldn’t be at the Lofts. What a mess. Good luck!</p>