OU to close grad student apartment complexOU to close grad student apartment complex

Ohio University has announced it will close the Wolfe Street apartment complex, a 52-unit housing facility for graduate and married students located on the local OU campus. The complex is home to 72 tenants, including students, their spouses and their children.

The complex will be closed down once its current leases expire June 15, according to a university news release.

OU has tentative plans to raze the apartments later this summer, the release said, as part of the university's Capital Improvement Plan and Housing Master Plan. The site will serve as a parking lot until further elements of the plan can be implemented.

Christine Sheets, OU's executive director of residential housing, is quoted in the release as saying her department is very excited to begin the initial phase of the housing master plan. She also acknowledged, however, that the shutdown of the Wolfe Street complex will have a big impact on its current tenants.

"We have notified tenants well in advance of the closure date and have arranged housing resources for them," Sheets said in the release. "Assisting them in finding future housing off campus that meets their needs will be one of our top priorities."

The Housing Master Plan combines a variety of renovation and new construction projects over the next 10 years.

More information on the Wolfe Street closure can be found at www.ohio.edu/housing/ua/closure_faq.cfm.

More information on the Housing Master Plan can be found at www.ohio.edu/housing/masterplan/.

REPLY TO THIS COMMENT

TerryB

Hrm... Right in the center of the student housing and campus classoom crossover....

Good place for a small parking garage maybe? Nothing big and obscene, but spend some of those art and decoration dollars to make look all spiffy.

Goulash Mix

Ahh!? Another smart decision by the OU VP bureaucrats... Fact: Graduate students and postdocs are the core of research work in any major research university…. The other day a prospective student asked me about OU osteopathic med school, and OU grad school in general, he reflected about how tight would be his budget if enrolled, he has a family and children… it poped out the question about the support OU offers to graduate students, including housing... frankly.. I said... a don’t know what to say ... and here is the proof...no housing for grad students reflects the short vision OU has for its future as a research university... it is ridiculous how OU announced on his homepage how a bureaucrat in Washington classified OU as a high activity research university... but that "truth in paper" is in stark contradiction with a research university with no graduate student housing and many other dubious facts about research life in OU... no housing for grad students... and not an alternative in the secret multimillion "housing master plan"... because there is no such plan

Gingercat

did you even bother to read the article? What secret plan are you referring to? If you had paid any attention to the resources posted above, you would have noticed the clearly posted link to the University's Housing Master Plan. That being said, there are plenty of alternative options available in Athens. And let's be honest - Wolfe street apartments were never the most budget friendly housing option in Athens. I do realize there are not a tremendous number of single family units available in Athens. They do exist, but perhaps this closure will allow room for development of single family units in the area that aren't in need of the costly maintenance that would be required if Wolfe street were to remain open. The university's deferred maintenance information on the Housing Master Plan recognizes that providing the necessary rehabilitation to the Wolfe Street complex is not a financially feasible option.

Goulash Mix,

Are you drunk? You ramble, rant, and make one wonder.

Drunk? Ramble and Rant? Have you ever lived on campus? Not certainly. Plenty of alternative affordable housing in Athens? Why the hurry of trowing out grad students out of campus? Not profitable enough? Need easy money? Are expensive parking lots more profitable? Simplest example for local skeptics: Ohio State in Columbus has a set graduate student and proffessional housing buildings from $365 to $765 month, OU Housing YES was expensive $900/month for grad. student, and is currently more expensive for undergrads. This proves two things: first OU does not have an adequate policy for affordable grad. student housing (now and in the near future is non-existing) and two, the argument that off-campus is the best choice for grad. and research personnel in the small town of Athens is fallacious, Why in a big city like Columbus Ohio State has maintained gradstudent housing instead of sending them off campus into the 100-fold larger than Athens reservoir of off-campus housing? Ahhh? Do you have a brain? Do you understand the argument? Where is the responsibility of OU towards it's research personnel? I have not heard any comments in that matter from OU officials yet.

I stand by my earlier comment. Since when does OU babysit graduate students? Why should they?

At the $900/mo. rate you quote, you could purchase your housing, and sell it at the end of your classes.

Even as an undergrad, 40 years ago, once out of the dorm system, housing was our own responsibility. Why the change?

Your reasoning is more in accord in the realm of a local red-neck who does not have a clue of the needs of scientific research or medical school graduate student, not to say you might lack any clue of the ambitions needed to transform a small college into a relevant institution of higher education. Well I guess mediocrity and hypocritical ambitions are a bad mix who seems to have a significant influence in stupid reasoning there with the over-paid bureaucratic corpse. I would be terrified but not surprised if you a fat pay-check bureaucrat, but not surprised at all if you are a bartender or rental owner, or a middleman OU employee, or some average guy who is just happy with the old recollections about college partying. Who is just about the national relevance of OU is not it? Is not OU well ranked as a college party school, but otherwise irrelevant in the national context? Or am I missing something here? Anyways that is about it with the lifestyle of ghost town in the middle of nowhere. If you are among the ones who want to keep like that, so be it.

, " a local redneck". Really, though, read your posts before you submit them.

Oh, and you should learn a bit more about this little "ghost town."

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