Albany

A Maryland developer is proposing 292 beds of for-profit student housing on a vacant acre across Washington Avenue from the University at Albany.

The five-story building next to Exit 2 of Interstate 90 would not be affiliated with any local college and would be the first private dorm near the sprawling state campus.

Separately, plans are percolating for a 500-bed dormitory on the Fuller Road site currently housing plastics recycling firm UltrePet, according to Donald Zee, a Colonie lawyer working on both projects. Under that plan, the recycling firm would remain on a different part of the site, Zee said.

If built, the Washington Avenue dorm would be the first permanent student housing on the north side of Washington Avenue, currently home to medical offices, a gas station, Dunkin' Donuts and several hotels that have at times housed student overflow from UAlbany's uptown campus.

The developer is Grant Ventures, LLC, an offshoot of Baltimore-based Grant Architects, which has designed student housing at the University of Maryland, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Connecticut and Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

The project at 1475 Washington Ave. is scheduled to go before the city's Board of Zoning Appeals next month. Grant Ventures is asking the board to confirm that the existing commercial zoning would allow a dorm built by a private developer, not a college, project engineer Daniel Hershberg said.

Zee said the partnership behind the nearby Fuller Road project is also awaiting the outcome of that zoning clarification.

"It's comparable to what SUNY has done placing students at hotels and motels across the street," Zee said, noting that private housing has started to blossom around the large SUNY campuses in Buffalo and Binghamton.

In Troy, the United Group has privately developed off-campus graduate student housing for RPI at the College Suites @ City Station. Schenectady County Community College also has private dorms near its campus.

Karl Luntta, a spokesman for UAlbany, said the university is aware of the project but has not been pushing it.

"We haven't had talks with them. And we wouldn't have a position on a private sector development project," Luntta said.

The school, he said, is currently at its capacity for 7,800 students in university housing but expects that number to drop over the course of the year to around 7,650, in line with past trends. Luntta said there are no immediate plans for UAlbany to build more housing but added: "We're constantly evaluating our housing situation and assessing the capacity we have and the capacity we expect and intend to have."

The private housing plans come two years after UAlbany opened 500 new beds of on-campus housing at Liberty Terrace and as officials are working to boost enrollment by as much as 1,350 by 2018, on the way to a student body as large as 20,000, according to the university's 2020 Plan.

Officials at the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, formerly known as the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, say they expect their enrollment in Albany to hit 1,000 within a decade. Currently, SUNY PI students live in UAlbany housing.

The Washington Avenue land is valued by the city at $106,700 and owned by the Gullo family, according to assessment records.

Hershberg said the plan is for four stories of housing on top of two levels of parking — one at ground level and one below grade.

The project was initially proposed last year for Western Avenue on the site of the Sage Engineering building near University Plaza.

But Zee said the developer backed away from that plan amid concerns about rekindling resistance from residents of the nearby Eagle Hill neighborhood, who raised concerns about UAlbany's Liberty Terrace. The Washington Avenue site is not adjacent to any residential neighborhoods.

Zee said the Washington Avenue dorm would have full-time security, come fully furnished and include amenities like valet parking, a clubhouse and fitness center. Prospective tenants, which could also include adjunct or visiting professors, would be required to have some formal affiliation with a higher-education institution, he said.

Hershberg said the dorms will be arranged in pods of four bedrooms and bathrooms grouped around a common kitchen and community space.

Because the private sector's construction costs are cheaper than the state's, Zee said, the dorm would be less expensive than living on campus.

To address concerns about the safety of crossing Washington Avenue, Zee and Hershberg said, the developer is working with the city on plans for barriers that would funnel students toward existing crosswalks.

Hershberg said the private development project will generate revenue for the city — either through taxes or a payment in lieu of taxes — in a way that a tax-exempt university dorm would not.

"Doing it as a private entity will make it taxable in some way, shape or form," he said.

jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com • 518-454-5445 • @JCEvangelist_TU