Anyone know what the construction status of this is:

http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/texas-a-m-unveils-plans-for-m--bed-park/article_6a93eb90-fc22-5817-a638-217b3c3c8b35.html

I live in Corpus and don't get to campus much.

It's not finished. I haven't been by recently but they have some of it open and some still under construction.

It's huge and is going to make traffic in that area so much worse. The row of buildings nearest Marion Pugh look quite finished and have exterior lighting outside the front doors of each unit turned on at night. They've had "Leasing Office" signs up on Luther for a month or two now as well. Also the RV park across the street on Penberthy (that seemingly popped up overnight) has been open for a couple of weeks.

Not too current, but here are pics from around campus and the new complex from late July.

The "RV Park" is the parking lot for the relocation of the intramural fields where the new softball and track complex will be going in.

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The "RV Park" is the parking lot for the relocation of the intramural fields where the new softball and track complex will be going in.

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It's an actual RV park for tailgating. Look at the hookups. It will be used as a regular parking lot, but it was rushed to open before football season.

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The "RV Park" is the parking lot for the relocation of the intramural fields where the new softball and track complex will be going in.

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It's an actual RV park for tailgating. Look at the hookups. It will be used as a regular parking lot, but it was rushed to open before football season.

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True on that.

Thanks for the pics (again), Scotch

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It's huge and is going to make traffic in that area so much worse.

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This is part of the ongoing effort to "centralize" student living and pull them away from other parts of the city. The idea is to have denser student populations and draw many of them away from living in far from campus areas. It will hopefully improve family centric neighborhoods & lower traffic elsewhere in town. Overall, I think it's a good idea.

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You privy to some special plan that the higher ups in the city and county aren't?

There is no plan to centralize students - the announcements of the projects and what is moving out to the old Riverside campus belie that. Especially since they plan to have upwards of 10K students out there.

This is about setting up public-private partnerships to give A&M ways to finance projects that they otherwise don't have money for. The university has 3 big things to bring to large public-private partnerships - to sell that is - land, tax exempt status and students. This one hits all three.

So what happens when the overbuilding of student housing catches up with them in about a year or two? Will they allow these places to lose profit with a significant percentage of open rooms? Or, will they just wave a wand requiring certain students to live on campus, multiplying the problem for the rest of the market?

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So what happens when the overbuilding of student housing catches up with them in about a year or two? Will they allow these places to lose profit with a significant percentage of open rooms? Or, will they just wave a wand requiring certain students to live on campus, multiplying the problem for the rest of the market?

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Wave the wand.
I've been told by a reliable source that Sharp fall said he wants enough on-campus housing that freshmen can be made to live on campus. Now that was about 4 years ago so he might have changed his mind after selling/leasing all the university land so far to private developers and getting money in that way.

For a city with "planning and zoning", they sure don't plan or zone well.
By me there is a 11 story, 300 unit, 900 bed complex about to go up.
Just up the road you can see the garage and beginning framing for another huge complex (I don't have numbers for that).
Just on Boyett there looks to be new luxury apartments that can house (wag) 2000 students.
How many can live in north point?
How many can live in the new stuff where the horse farm was?
That's just the "close to campus" housing.
Add in the south gate houses popping up.
The northgate smaller apartments/town homes popping up.
All the apartments down wellborn and 2818.

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It's huge and is going to make traffic in that area so much worse.

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This is part of the ongoing effort to "centralize" student living and pull them away from other parts of the city. The idea is to have denser student populations and draw many of them away from living in far from campus areas. It will hopefully improve family centric neighborhoods & lower traffic elsewhere in town. Overall, I think it's a good idea.

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You privy to some special plan that the higher ups in the city and county aren't?

There is no plan to centralize students - the announcements of the projects and what is moving out to the old Riverside campus belie that. Especially since they plan to have upwards of 10K students out there.

This is about setting up public-private partnerships to give A&M ways to finance projects that they otherwise don't have money for. The university has 3 big things to bring to large public-private partnerships - to sell that is - land, tax exempt status and students. This one hits all three.

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Yup. Look at the massive housing that's gone up around Northgate & University. No way P&Z would have greenlighted all those projects without considering the strong appeal of dense student housing over there. Riverside may have 10000 but how many will be Blinn students? They're already driving away from campus. Riverside RELLIS won't change that.

Sharp will just increase enrollment to 120,000 or so..

Park West (megadorm) is slated to be a 3,400 bed complex. The only good thing is that the students should just be taking the bus to the middle of campus. But they will put a strain on the streets at other times around there even with the expansion of Luther.

That's a lot of potential excess body fluids to pile up in Northgate!

FlyRod, I know of a great business opportunity wherein customers just waft a little bottle of oil and all smells rosy...

You would like to think that but time will tell.

And the Park West - aka MegaDorn - complex also may have retail as part of the complex, so it will be interesting to see how the traffic flow develops.

Part of the issue isn't the CoCS streets but the interior streets on West Campus. Penberthy and others are two lane and have numerous pedestrian crossings and bus stops on them. The removal of the stop sign earlier this year at Penberthy by Reed Arena helped but the root cause remains.

The planned construction of the new Athletics facilities and relocation of RecSports may make things worse in the short-term for the interior traffic flows. I don't even want to contemplate the badly needed Bush/Wellborn/RailRoad construction taking place at the same time.

The RR definitely creates a number of bottlenecks in the area and makes the issues much more complex. Not only does it limit the crossings that can exist, the ones that are there have bad geometry and grade approach issues. It even messes up whatever traffic light synchronization there is as it takes a number of cycles after a train comes through to get the lights back in synch to help traffic to flow.

*Too bad the citizens of CS voted down the plan to put the tracks in a channel back in the day. It would have helped a bit.

They seem to have multiple websites out there - different ones for the main building (Flats) vs (Apartments)?

This has flats and seems to be individual leases:

http://whatisparkwest.com

• Additional units will be available for move-in beginning January 2017. Check back as information will be posted when they are available for leasing or contact us directly to be added to an interest list.

Here is another one that says apartments:

http://www.parkstationtexas.com/#floorplans

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Park West is the new apartment community under construction near Kyle Field. When the full site opens in fall 2017, Park West will be the premier community in College Station housing 3,400 of your closest Aggie friends. Phase I opening August 2016 (Waiting list only). Phase II opening January 2017 (limited leases available). Phase III opening August 2017.

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And is the trophy buck going to come as part of the decor? That might help put a dent in the Texas Whitetail numbers.

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*Too bad the citizens of CS voted down the plan to put the tracks in a channel back in the day.

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It would have solved nearly all issues. Unfortunately their short-sighted vote also hurt the F&B/Old College and Villa Maria crossings. Sure, Villa Maria has a grade separation now, but Finfeather was neglected in the design and F&B looks to be forever screwed up. LoTrack would have made for better grade separations in both cases. Oh well...

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Wasn't there a vote about 30-40 year ago to actually move the tracks to the west circling around BCS ? I believe that the RR and the state were offering to help pay the majority but Brazos county had to get on board and pass some bonds. Sadly it was voted down by the fools back then.

In the late 80's there was the "Lo-Track" proposal. IIRC, TAMU, the county, Bryan were all for it but when it went to a citizen's vote in CS, it failed by a small margin.

In the early 2000's, there was a plan to move the railroad to the west of the cities into rural areas. TAMU and CS were for it but it broke down due to opposition of landowners and Bryan. The alignment would have required either spurs still coming into Bryan to support some of the businesses that need it or going around CS and then coming back to current path in Bryan. IIRC, the railroad was not happy with either option as it would cause complications and costs either way.

The push behind much of this was a federal requirement to reduce the number of at-grade railroad crossings by so many percent nationwide (I think it was 40% but I can't find exact number) to improve overall safety.

Back to MegaDorm...

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wow, that is tiny

I loved the dining room table that would make a french sidewalk cafe table look enormous.

You've never been in a dorm? Those are huge compared to what we lived in.

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It's huge and is going to make traffic in that area so much worse.

---

This is part of the ongoing effort to "centralize" student living and pull them away from other parts of the city. The idea is to have denser student populations and draw many of them away from living in far from campus areas. It will hopefully improve family centric neighborhoods & lower traffic elsewhere in town. Overall, I think it's a good idea.

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It's an excellent idea and I'm glad they're encouraging it.

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It's huge and is going to make traffic in that area so much worse.

---

This is part of the ongoing effort to "centralize" student living and pull them away from other parts of the city. The idea is to have denser student populations and draw many of them away from living in far from campus areas. It will hopefully improve family centric neighborhoods & lower traffic elsewhere in town. Overall, I think it's a good idea.

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I'm so surprised that you think it is a good idea... Sharp's math just keeps getting better. So far with the big school's cut and the cost of the buildings you have $1000 per month per bed rent with no profit, no maintenance, no nothing.... What a crock.

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So what happens when the overbuilding of student housing catches up with them in about a year or two? Will they allow these places to lose profit with a significant percentage of open rooms? Or, will they just wave a wand requiring certain students to live on campus, multiplying the problem for the rest of the market?

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Wave the wand.
I've been told by a reliable source that Sharp fall said he wants enough on-campus housing that freshmen can be made to live on campus. Now that was about 4 years ago so he might have changed his mind after selling/leasing all the university land so far to private developers and getting money in that way.

For a city with "planning and zoning", they sure don't plan or zone well.
By me there is a 11 story, 300 unit, 900 bed complex about to go up.
Just up the road you can see the garage and beginning framing for another huge complex (I don't have numbers for that).
Just on Boyett there looks to be new luxury apartments that can house (wag) 2000 students.
How many can live in north point?
How many can live in the new stuff where the horse farm was?
That's just the "close to campus" housing.
Add in the south gate houses popping up.
The northgate smaller apartments/town homes popping up.
All the apartments down wellborn and 2818.

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The city's planning and zoning department does not decide the feasibility of these projects.

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You've never been in a dorm? Those are huge compared to what we lived in.

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But a dorm offers the benefit of being on campus. If you're going to live off campus why live in these tiny things?