Winnipeg Construction VIII

[Riverman]

Beat me to it. All of my foreign students are wealthy.

[1ajs]

Dunno if anyone noticed but last week they took the crane down at heritage landing

[CoryB]

There is definite a range in foreign students. I have heard stories of some parents being told that everyone here drives a brand new BMW and it is the only way you can get around so the students have their parents paying for that. Others, well the parents live in poverty scraping every cent to second their child to America to get an education so they will have a better life. It is a real spread.

That said 140 units, even at two beds per is only 280 beds, or 70 beds short of the 350 beds number they announced. The links others have posted show two bed units in other builds. I would guess they are going to try and fit a 4 bed unit into about 1000 sq ft, meaning the $495 price is for about 250 sq ft. They will likely cut corner on the shared living space inside the unit and spin it that they have common lounges on each floor with allow for more interaction and socialization between tenants.

It would definitely be interesting to see some floor plans but I doubt this moves beyond the concept stage. As I said previously the location and future golf course development will kill this.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Beat me to it. All of my foreign students are wealthy.

This is not the norm, rest assured. It's a bit of a trope that all international students that attend the U of M are wealthy main-landers driving Audis with fluorescent green rims, but that only tells a very small, very visible side of the story. Chinese make up a little over a third of all international students, but they're not all from exceptional means. In a lot of cases their families make huge sacrifices to send them here and that means living pretty hand to mouth. Hence the explosion in $250 rooms in the basement of a 1200 square foot home in Ft. Richmond. But there are almost 4500 international students that attend the U of M. There's no doubt a few of them will opt into a scenario that Rise is proposing and that's all they'll really need. But the U of M isn't in need of 'luxury' student housing 'cause that already exists. They're in need of affordable student housing.

Truth is, I don't know how you provide that without huge subsidy. The difference between a 'luxury' unit and a 'basic' one these days is granite countertops and a tiled backsplash. Those aren't the sorts of things that, when removed, materially bring down the cost of housing.

ETA: Cory kinda beat me to it with his comment...

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Thanks for the links.

The whole Rise concept is certainly interesting. There are definitely a number of homes in Bridgwater rented out by 6 or 7 students, but that market isn't huge. And I'm not quite sure how this works exactly. Do you get to pick your roommates? And if you're a single person, will you be assigned to a random suite?

The price point seems on the low side to me given the amenities they're showing from the other buildings, so I'm guessing you ain't gettin' those amenities, but I also feel like it's high for students. To Cory's point, I don't think there's any real overlap between this market and the one that causes so many issues within Ft. Richmond. These units are geared towards students for whom expenses are probably largely covered by their parents. If you're paying somewhere on the order of ~$2 sq ft, that's not student living; that's everyday apartment living and that's the sort of thing that's largely caused the huge uptick in single occupancy amongst foreign students. They can't afford to pay much more than $250-$300/mth for a room in a house that's walkable.

Anyway, it's a cool project, but Janie Lukes ought to know that providing tanning beds and business services is not how you solve a housing problem that consists almost exclusively of poor foreign students who don't have a credit rating, let alone a co-signer. This doesn't even come close to addressing the structural issues of this problem and the U of M needs to take responsibility for building their bottom line on the backs of juiced-up foreign tuition while neglecting the attendant need for even basic shelter.

Absolutely. It's embarrassing.

[The Unknown Poster]

I briefly caught some discussion on CJOB last night about this. I dont know who the guests were, if one was Lukes but they had a caller who said her neighbor converted her home into a 10 bedroom house by splitting two bedrooms in the basement into four and making a connecting door between them to get around the "every room needs a window" rule.

I can understand the concern of neighbors when it comes to a room with 10+ students. But as pointed out, this isnt new. My friend rents out two rooms in his home and has had various tenants. Always very quiet.

If Lukes is cracking down on the "rooming house" idea while supporting a friendly developer, it sort of makes me wonder about her. I wondered already...but now a bit more.

[steveosnyder]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

This is not the norm, rest assured. It's a bit of a trope that all international students that attend the U of M are wealthy main-landers driving Audis with fluorescent green rims, but that only tells a very small, very visible side of the story. Chinese make up a little over a third of all international students, but they're not all from exceptional means. In a lot of cases their families make huge sacrifices to send them here and that means living pretty hand to mouth. Hence the explosion in $250 rooms in the basement of a 1200 square foot home in Ft. Richmond. But there are almost 4500 international students that attend the U of M. There's no doubt a few of them will opt into a scenario that Rise is proposing and that's all they'll really need. But the U of M isn't in need of 'luxury' student housing 'cause that already exists. They're in need of affordable student housing.

Truth is, I don't know how you provide that without huge subsidy. The difference between a 'luxury' unit and a 'basic' one these days is granite countertops and a tiled backsplash. Those aren't the sorts of things that, when removed, materially bring down the cost of housing.

ETA: Cory kinda beat me to it with his comment...

I can see it coming already, the City will help the University pay for this housing with TIF or some other stupid tax scheme (they may end up justifying this as some sort of TOD), making everyone pay for the policy choices of the University. Why doesn't the university just speed up the process of opening up the golf course land for residence?

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by The Unknown Poster

I briefly caught some discussion on CJOB last night about this. I dont know who the guests were, if one was Lukes but they had a caller who said her neighbor converted her home into a 10 bedroom house by splitting two bedrooms in the basement into four and making a connecting door between them to get around the "every room needs a window" rule.

I can understand the concern of neighbors when it comes to a room with 10+ students. But as pointed out, this isnt new. My friend rents out two rooms in his home and has had various tenants. Always very quiet.

If Lukes is cracking down on the "rooming house" idea while supporting a friendly developer, it sort of makes me wonder about her. I wondered already...but now a bit more.

Two rooms is fine. That's actually the limit as an accessory usage of the home. And people should be able to do that kind of stuff. It's the 10 to a home nonsense that makes it all a problem. These homes are purchased explicitly for the purposes of building stud walls in the basement and housing 8-10 people at a time where nobody maintains the home in any capacity whatsoever. This sort of density is completely unacceptable given that you can barely get an approval for a secondary suite in the neighbourhood.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by steveosnyder

I can see it coming already, the City will help the University pay for this housing with TIF or some other stupid tax scheme (they may end up justifying this as some sort of TOD), making everyone pay for the policy choices of the University. Why doesn't the university just speed up the process of opening up the golf course land for residence?

The University's priorities are so completely messed up, I have no idea how you salvage them. And the truth is that its mostly the fault of the individual faculties. There is so much money awash within the alumni, but its all earmarked for the projects of the megalomaniacs who ultimately want to fund a faculty building with their name on it somewhere. There's no glamour in subsidizing housing. So, like all educational institutions these days, the eye is towards constant expansion with no accounting for the maintenance of anything. Instead of having money to subsidize or even properly direct tuition towards housing, there isn't any left. The U of M's biggest problem with the Southwood lands is that they have no money! This, all as the more upper-tier faculties sit with tens of millions in commitments for new faculty buildings.

Hell, nursing is about to get a new $100MM faculty. It's total lunacy when you think about how many students could be housed for even half of that.

The U of W ran into the same problem with McFeetors Hall. Instead of building low-key housing that you could run at a discount, they undertook an architectural masterpiece that doesn't come anywhere close to paying for itself and now it's a huge millstone around the neck of the U of W.

University housing should be an issue for the Feds and the Province if there is subsidy. And if it's housing international students, the costs should be baked into the tuition. And if that cuts down on the number of international students, then that's too bad for the U of M. The university doesn't need $100MM faculty buildings.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

The U of W ran into the same problem with McFeetors Hall. Instead of building low-key housing that you could run at a discount, they undertook an architectural masterpiece

Not to detract from your main point, but I just wanted to point out that is a rather generous assessment.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

The University's priorities are so completely messed up, I have no idea how you salvage them. And the truth is that its mostly the fault of the individual faculties. There is so much money awash within the alumni, but its all earmarked for the projects of the megalomaniacs who ultimately want to fund a faculty building with their name on it somewhere. There's no glamour in subsidizing housing. So, like all educational institutions these days, the eye is towards constant expansion with no accounting for the maintenance of anything. Instead of having money to subsidize or even properly direct tuition towards housing, there isn't any left. The U of M's biggest problem with the Southwood lands is that they have no money! This, all as the more upper-tier faculties sit with tens of millions in commitments for new faculty buildings.

Hell, nursing is about to get a new $100MM faculty. It's total lunacy when you think about how many students could be housed for even half of that.

The U of W ran into the same problem with McFeetors Hall. Instead of building low-key housing that you could run at a discount, they undertook an architectural masterpiece that doesn't come anywhere close to paying for itself and now it's a huge millstone around the neck of the U of W.

University housing should be an issue for the Feds and the Province if there is subsidy. And if it's housing international students, the costs should be baked into the tuition. And if that cuts down on the number of international students, then that's too bad for the U of M. The university doesn't need $100MM faculty buildings.

Agree with all of this. The problem (and this is a serious question) is who polices this then?

Originally Posted by esquire

Not to detract from your main point, but I just wanted to point out that is a rather generous assessment.

For a residence hall, It's as good as they come. Big, beautiful kitchens and common rooms, nice sized dorms, and the main entrance looks great. Compare that to what RRC Res students are living in... They really dropped the ball there (although, yes, the building is a masterpiece).

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Hell, nursing is about to get a new $100MM faculty. It's total lunacy when you think about how many students could be housed for even half of that.

There is a lot more spin on the new nursing building. The first is that it is addressing the glaring mistake about 15 years back of building a brand new building for nursing on the Fort Garry campus when it was clear even then all the medical related programs were moving to Banytane. Now that U of M is "saving" on administration costs by the new medical studies program which combines medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and others into a single faculty the new nursing building is needed. That is before even accounting for the move to a common "pre-med" program that will be needed in the future to get into any of the highly desired professional programs. For nursing that will likely mean a three year "shared" medical studies degree followed by a two-year after degree undergrad program is nursing for a total program length of five years.

That said the $100 M building cost is definitely something separate from student housing in this case as it will be spun as savings costs, improving program quality and other such things. The bigger question that should be asked is why did they sink that money into the Fort Garry Nursing building and what will happen to it when Nursing moves out.

[esquire]

^ I would think the nursing building on the Fort Garry campus could be pretty easily reconfigured to provide space for one of the other faculties... I don't doubt that the U of M could put it to good use.

I was a student when they built it... it seemed like such a breath of fresh air when they demolished the decrepit old Bison East Gym and replaced it with that, but now the nursing building seems like such an austere, typically late 90s kind of building.

[Riverman]

Bison East Gym. Saw my first concert there, 1971. The Edgar Winter Group.

[Kronos]

Originally Posted by CoryB

There is a lot more spin on the new nursing building. The first is that it is addressing the glaring mistake about 15 years back of building a brand new building for nursing on the Fort Garry campus when it was clear even then all the medical related programs were moving to Banytane. Now that U of M is "saving" on administration costs by the new medical studies program which combines medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and others into a single faculty the new nursing building is needed. That is before even accounting for the move to a common "pre-med" program that will be needed in the future to get into any of the highly desired professional programs. For nursing that will likely mean a three year "shared" medical studies degree followed by a two-year after degree undergrad program is nursing for a total program length of five years.

That said the $100 M building cost is definitely something separate from student housing in this case as it will be spun as savings costs, improving program quality and other such things. The bigger question that should be asked is why did they sink that money into the Fort Garry Nursing building and what will happen to it when Nursing moves out.

Not sure about this common 'pre-med' program....I personally don't see the Faculty of Medicine requiring a shared pre-med program as they are trying to diversify who's being accepted, in addition to a decreased emphasis on GPA in the admissions process in favor of MCAT and interview.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by esquire

Not to detract from your main point, but I just wanted to point out that is a rather generous assessment.

Point taken

[Auror]

Originally Posted by buzzg

I'm curious on peoples' thoughts about that^ — what if Graham were to become ped and bike only, and move busses to Portage or St. Mary, or maybe have one way on each? The transit mall is a good idea, but the busses don't really move that fast on it in rush hour anyway.

Sorry for the very late response but I disagree with that. Rush hour Portage bus moves VERY slow. There are many cars that drives on the bus lane. I've waited for busses that are 10-15 minutes late chugging along Portage. I can see a line of busses and cars several blocks down. Not the case with Graham.

[bomberjet]

Not sure if it's allowed. But people are always biking down Graham in between buses. Seems a bit unsafe, and buses likely have to follow behind slowly. But it's already being done.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Not sure if it's allowed. But people are always biking down Graham in between buses. Seems a bit unsafe, and buses likely have to follow behind slowly. But it's already being done.

Bikes are OK on Graham... which is kind of crazy when you consider the route is dominated by some of the biggest vehicles on the road. I don't feel especially comfortable riding my bike on Graham.

[LilZebra]

I don't ride on the road down Graham Ave. by bike either because of the fumes and danger from buses.

If I can, I much prefer to ride on St. Mary Ave. in the bike lane, and usually do so going from downtown back home.

In general I ride "where it's safe" - that could be sidewalk, bike path, or roadway.

In my 46 yrs. of riding (going back to tricycle days), was never involved in an accident.

Ever since the BRT yes, there is much more bus traffic on Graham, and just like in Ottawa they do bunch up.

I can provide photographic evidence if need be.