Cardinal Points

Issue date: 10/5/07 Section: News

St. John's Academy on Broad Street will be renovated into new apartments for college housing. The project aims to finish for the fall 2009 semester.

Imagine waking up in your own private bedroom.

Imagine making breakfast in your own kitchen and eating it in your own living room, then walking downstairs to jog on the treadmill in your own exclusive gym.

Imagine walking out the door and finding your car waiting for you in a reserved parking spot, then realizing you don't need to use it because you're only a five-minute walk from almost all the campus buildings.

Imagine coming home at night and knowing you can make all the local phone calls you want, use the Wi-Fi Internet service for as long as you want and watch any cable television channel as often as you want.

"These are the kinds of things college students dream about," said United Real Estate Group Chief Operations Officer John Ball, a veteran contractor who has overseen construction of off-campus housing facilities at campuses ranging from Finger Lakes Community College to the University of Albany. "Students don't want to just live. They want to live comfortably when they move off campus. Too often, they don't ever have the chance to do so."

Now, Ball said, PSUC students will have that chance.

If all goes according to plan, Ball hopes to see PSUC students turning dreams of easy living into reality by the fall of 2009.

United Group recently signed a $1 million contract to purchase the St. John's Academy building and seven acres of adjoining land on Broad Street, Ball said, and plans are already in the works to transform the site into "higher-end" off-campus student housing.

"This is going to be an exciting partnership with Plattsburgh State," Ball said. "The days of students going off campus and looking for the cheapest place on the market are passé. Students - not just Plattsburgh students, but all students - are demanding more. They want something more, and we build to bring students what they want."

While the design of the new complex is far from finalized, Ball said United Group plans on creating enough room for 350 to 450 new beds, all arranged in two-, three- and four-bedroom suites. All of the suites are expected to be about 1,000-square feet in size, and include a full kitchen, living room and bathroom to go with the individual bedrooms.

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