Pierce Education Properties is building a $65.5 million student housing project – College View – overlooking the campus of San Diego State University.
President & CEO
Pierce Education Properties
“To get to campus, you just fall out of bed and walk to campus,” said Fred Pierce, president, and CEO of Pierce Properties.
The five-story building at 5420 55th St. will have 301 beds in 90 apartments serving SDSU students.
College View is going up on the site of a 1950s-era, 32-unit apartment building that was demolished.
“After 75 years, it had run its useful life,” Pierce said.
Designed by KTGY Architecture + Planning, based in Santa Monica, with Benchmark Contractors, Inc. based in Santa Monica, as the general contractor, College View will have a mix of stone veneer, metal, and stucco on the exterior in a combination of earth tones and gray.
The look is meant “to fit within the largely mission-style architecture that is the SDSU campus but not be mission style,” Pierce said. “We wanted it not to be super modern at this location, to have it fit in nicely, maybe set the tone for the rest of the student housing.”
Construction of College View started in October 2021 and is due for completion in August 2024.
The complex will have 15 one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments of 474 to 563 square feet, five two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments of 848 square feet, four three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartments of 1,193 square feet, and 66 four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartments of 1,440 square feet.
Rents have yet to be set, but Pierce said, “We’ll be among, if not the most expensive in the market, but we’ll be worth it.”
There’s already a waiting list.
“We think it’s going to lease up fast,” Pierce said. “The SDSU market is 100% leased and expected to be 100% leased into the near future.”
Nationally, Berkadia in its 2023 U.S. Student Housing Market Report wrote that: “The recovery of the student housing market is indisputable with the 2022/2023 leasing cycle being on pace to be the strongest in the last decade.”
Student housing properties on the West Coast have demonstrated significant growth with preleasing at 85.7% on average and rent increases up 6% on average in the last year, according to Berkadia.
The firm advised that, “based on its strong operating fundamentals and its ability to provide some of the best risk-adjusted returns in all of real estate, investors can no longer ignore the student housing industry.”
Keeping Up
The apartments in College View will have faux-wood flooring in the living rooms, dining areas, bathrooms and hallways, with carpeting in the bedrooms.
Each apartment has a full-sized washer/dryer, synthetic granite countertops, ceiling fans in the bedrooms and living rooms, and 50-inch, wall-mounted flat screen televisions.
The apartments are fully furnished with bar stools at side bars, twin beds, sofas, chairs, end tables, and coffee tables.
A swimming pool is built into a 5,000-square-foot deck, overlooking a canyon with views of Mission Valley.
The pool deck has 14 chaise lounge chairs, five Nantucket chairs, an indoor/outdoor kitchen, a fire pit, showers and a recreation room with a billiard table, a ping-pong table, foosball table, and a 70-inch television.
College View will also have a 623-square-foot fitness center and study spaces.
“We want to make sure that we’ve got all the common amenities and the luxury of living that today’s students really want,” Pierce said. “It’s a bit of keeping up with the Joneses. We’re just down the block from the Aztec recreation center, but sometimes, the students don’t want to walk up the hill.”
The project will have only 48 on-site parking spaces, but Pierce said student parking is available nearby with an SDSU permit.
“Across the street and down the hill, there’s a giant, 12-story parking structure that’s just a short walk,” Pierce said, adding that, “We think many of our students won’t have cars.”
“The university has a rule that they do not allow freshmen to have cars. You have to leave the car at home, if you’re got one,” Pierce said. “More and more students, the last I heard, 25% of incoming freshmen, don’t even have a driver’s license.”
Pierce Education Properties is wrapping up construction of a $47 million student housing project, Topaz at 5824 Montezuma Road.
The seven-story Topaz will have 169 beds in 53 apartments and 10,400 square feet of ground floor retail space.
Pierce Education Properties
Founded: 1995
Headquarters: Mission Valley
President and CEO: Fred Pierce
Business: Developer and owner of student housing projects
Employees: 150
Website: pepstudent.com
Contact: 619-297-0400
Notable: Since 2007, Pierce Education Properties has acquired or built student housing projects serving 33 universities in 18 states.
