CONSENT for Meeting of July
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F1B Office of the President TO MEMBERS OF THE FINANCE AND CAPITAL STRATEGIES COMMITTEE: ACTION ITEM − CONSENT For Meeting of July 17, 2019 APPROVAL OF PRELIMINARY PLANS FUNDING, FUTURE COLLEGE LIVING AND LEARNING NEIGHBORHOOD, SAN DIEGO CAMPUS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The San Diego campus proposes the Future College Living and Learning Neighborhood (FCLLN) project to locate new undergraduate student housing together with a new college, thereby increasing beds while also decompressing the existing colleges, which are over capacity. The proposed location is an approximately 10.9-acre site that would provide approximately 2,000 new beds in multiple mid-rise and high-rise configurations for undergraduate housing. With a buildable site area of approximately 5.8 acres, the project design would target 345 beds per acre, and a floor area ratio (FAR) between 3.5 and 4.0. The remainder of the site would include public realm improvements such as a large recreation/wellness area along the northern Revelle College border; realignment of a portion of Scholars Drive South (campus loop road); and an extension of Ridge Walk (a primary north-south pedestrian spine) to the southern campus boundary; and required building setbacks. The site is bound by North Torrey Pines Road to the west and south, Revelle College to the north, and the Theatre District to the southeast. Currently, the land provides surface parking (840 spaces) in two lots that are bisected by Scholars Drive. In addition to housing, the program would include residential life and administrative space for a new college, general assignment classrooms, conference space, housing support space, and retail to include dining and a market for campus and off-campus community use. This project would include approximately 1,200 (360 net new) subterranean parking spaces to replace the highly utilized displaced spaces and to provide new spaces to meet future demands in this part of the campus. The proposed parking aligns with the 2018 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) goal of providing parking facilities at the campus periphery, which allows for a more pedestrian- focused campus core. Creation of affordable on-campus housing in a collaborative, interdisciplinary living and learning environment has been identified as a crucial step toward achieving goals set forth in UC San Diego’s Strategic Plan completed in 2014. UC San Diego is expected to become one of the largest residential campuses in North America by 2023. With student enrollment up 30 percent over the last five years and anticipated to reach 40,000+ students by 2028, the campus anticipates FINANCE AND CAPITAL STRATEGIES -2- F1B COMMITTEE July 17, 2019 that between 2016 and 2028, the student resident population will nearly double from 14,000 to 26,000 beds. This project was presented to the Regents for discussion at their May 2019 meeting. The Regents are being asked to approve preliminary plans funding of $30 million to be funded with campus funds. The preliminary plans funding would support selection of a pre-qualified design-build team via the competitive process, scope refinement, preliminary design, and project cost estimating. Approval of full budget, associated external financing, and design following action pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act would be requested in spring/summer 2020. RECOMMENDATION The President of the University recommends that the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee recommend to the Regents that the 2018-19 Budget for Capital Improvements and the Capital Improvement Program be amended to include the following project: San Diego: Future College Living and Learning Neighborhood – preliminary plans – $30 million to be funded with campus funds. BACKGROUND College Infrastructure and Affordable Housing Demand UC San Diego views the college system as an integral and key component to its success as a top- tier research university. The college system, an integral component of its undergraduate student experience, was inaugurated with the opening of Revelle College in 1964. In the following years, five more colleges – Muir, Marshall, Warren, Roosevelt, and Sixth – were established, each with its own residential facilities, distinctive educational philosophy, general education/graduation requirements, and student support services. The college concept provides smaller human-scaled neighborhoods with student housing in each, in the context of a large university campus that can be overwhelming for first- and second-year students. In coordination with the existing six colleges, the campus has determined that the ideal size of each college is approximately 4,000 students. However, with rapid enrollment growth, all six colleges are over capacity (each with enrollment between 4,900 and 5,100), posing a significant challenge to the colleges’ ability to provide a high-quality academic and social support environment for students (including staff and resources), especially for incoming first-year students. Without additional colleges, each college’s enrollment would grow to over 5,300, which would negatively affect the campus’s ability to serve students because the campus would only be able to offer one year of housing. Indeed, at approximately 5,000 undergraduates per college, resources are severely strained and this affects the student experience. Enrollment pressures provide strong motivation for the addition of two more colleges. FINANCE AND CAPITAL STRATEGIES -3- F1B COMMITTEE July 17, 2019 The 2018 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), approved by the Regents in November 2018, anticipates the development of up to two more residential colleges (for a total of eight), to accommodate recent accelerated enrollment growth and future projected growth, with the intent of maintaining an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students per college. While academic planning for these future colleges is underway, planning for the facilities to accommodate these colleges is necessary at this time to ensure housing and academic support facilities are in place to meet college opening timelines. As a result of rapid student enrollment growth and unprecedented housing demand, creative measures have been necessary to provide additional beds for students. For the 2018-19 academic year, the campus provided housing for 11,654 undergraduate students in facilities that were designed to house 9,366 (2,288 beds over design capacity, primarily added via converting double rooms to triples wherever possible). Even with housing students in excess of design capacity, the campus is unable to meet demand, nor can it achieve the 65 percent housing goal set forth in the 2018 LRDP. Table 1 not only demonstrates the number of students housed on campus (per college) relative to design capacity and the 2018 LRDP Housing Goal, but it also demonstrates that all six colleges are over-enrolled in terms of targeting enrollment of approximately 4,000 students per college. Table 1: Undergraduate (UG) Students Housed per College, Fall 2018 UG UG Percent of Design Beds added Students Students UG Students Capacity in Excess of Enrolled1 Housed Housed2 Design (Fall 2018) Capacity Revelle College 5,106 1,809 35% 1,402 407 Muir College 5,043 1,467 29% 1,227 240 Warren College 4,905 1,735 35% 1,300 435 Roosevelt College 5,074 1,531 30% 1,232 299 Marshall College 5,022 1,232 25% 1,056 176 Sixth College 5,135 1,550 30% 1,298 252 Transfer Housing 2,330 1,851 479 Total 30,285 11,654 39% 9,366 2,288 Notes: 1 Data in this column represents total number of students enrolled in each college as of the Fall 2018 Quarter, 3rd week. Note that all six colleges are currently over-enrolled; goal is to target an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students per college. 2 2018 Long Range Development Plan includes a goal to house 65% of eligible students in campus housing. Need for Replacement Parking Between 2001 and 2016, the total number of daily commuters entering campus (students, faculty, staff, and visitors) grew from just under 40,000 to almost 55,000 people. While UC San Diego has made tremendous progress toward reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicles entering campus (a 23 percent reduction since 2001), and despite anticipation of reduced demand FINANCE AND CAPITAL STRATEGIES -4- F1B COMMITTEE July 17, 2019 (ten percent) upon completion of the Light Rail Transit (LRT), relevant data indicates that approximately 43 percent of students, faculty, and staff will continue to drive to campus in single-occupancy vehicles. Over the past decade, the ongoing physical development of the campus has had significant impact on the demand for and availability of parking, especially in the central areas. Most of the new facilities were constructed on surface parking lots that were not replaced, significantly reducing the parking inventory over time. PROJECT DRIVERS Three key drivers for this project are: 1. Demand for Affordable Student Housing 2. Maintain Success of Undergraduate College System 3. Need for Academic Space Demand for Affordable Student Housing Demand for on-campus affordable student housing is very high at UC San Diego. The shortage of reasonably priced rentals in the surrounding private market community strongly affects the demand for on-campus housing. UC San Diego is located in La Jolla and adjacent to University Town Center (UTC), areas where housing costs are extremely high. The average rent in San Diego County hit a record $1,960 per month as of October 2018, which represents a six percent increase in one year. Rent has increased 20 percent since March 2015, when the average monthly rent was $1,563, and the apartment vacancy rate off campus continues to be slightly over four percent. 1 On-campus monthly rental rates have been at least 20 percent lower than market rate in the UTC area and the campus has committed to maintaining lower rates than the surrounding private market for all new proposed on-campus housing. Table 2 provides estimated rental rates for the 2023-24 academic year for Future College undergraduate student housing compared to the surrounding private market rental rates in UTC, and illustrates that the proposed project would be at least 20 percent below private market.