As Samford, city populations expand, housing reaches limit

This is the second part in a four-part series examining the interaction between Samford University, its students and residents of the city of Homewood. Click here to read the first part of the series.

Samford University entered the education world as Howard College, with only 850 students. But, like for many colleges, growth was inevitable. 

As noted in the first installment of our school series, nearly 5,500 students will call themselves Bulldogs this fall, and the university has seen  growth in total enrollment of 22 percent in the last 10 years.

Samford Vice President for Student Affairs Phil Kimrey called the growth “very intentional, deliberate and calculated,” and admitted that it’s “not perfect by any means.” The university has seen record enrollment for eight years now, and by 2030, Samford’s master planning process is projecting enrollment of 7,500 students.

“I think growth is something that we see a lot. Especially in areas that are built for smaller capacities,” said former SGA president and finance major Porter Rivers. Rivers recently graduated this spring.

But the university isn’t the sole factor affecting Homewood — its population has increased, too.

According to the United States Census Bureau, from 2010-2015, Homewood’s population has increased by 2.2 percent, or 543 people. While this may not seem like a significant amount, for a city that was already close to capacity, any increase in population can put a strain on resources, including housing.

Samford has held an annual growth of roughly 5 percent, which is nearly double that of the 2 percent growth of the Homewood community. Kimrey said that Samford is likely behind part of that growth, mentioning that many students opt to stay in the community upon graduation.

Residential impact

In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that there were 11,385 housing units, which can be defined as homes, mobile homes or apartments, in Homewood. As an entity, Samford executive vice president Buck Brock said the university has owned about 31 homes since 1979. 

Today, Brock said the university continues to use about 21 of them primarily for staff and faculty housing. “The vast, vast, vast majority of the housing is not used for students,” said Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Colin Coyne. 

Still, after reaching a limit with the local residents and the community of Homewood, the university worked with city officials to establish a 7-year moratorium that prohibited Samford from purchasing residential properties for the University in 2011.

“Once that went into place and they stopped purchasing properties, complaints went way down,” said Homewood council Ward 4 Representative Barry Smith, whose ward includes Samford.

“I was really kind of astonished when I heard that many houses [are owned by Samford],” said City Council Ward 5 Representative Peter Wright. The homes, one of which houses students and the rest house staff, are located throughout the community, including on Saulter Road and Windsor Boulevard on the north side of campus.

“There were people who called us, who were terribly upset that we had agreed to [the moratorium] because we were creating the selling market,” said Coyne. He said that the university is already being approached by people asking if Samford is looking to buy their home. 

“I think that there is and always will be the concern of Samford expanding their footprint. And I think Samford will always be certainly aware of adjacent properties that could go up for sale,” council Ward 4 Representative Alex Wyatt said. “From what I hear again at the planning session, and what I think residents have heard that have attended the planning sessions, is there’s not a plan to expand into the residential areas.”

Wyatt, who recently became the council’s liaison with the university, also said that, understandably, Samford doesn’t want to guarantee they would never be interested if some property becomes available.

“That’s possible and it would depend on the property, the price, and a million other circumstances, and … the variables are too great for anyone to make a statement about it at this point,” he said.

“Come what may, you know, we’ll look at each one, when the time is right and whether it makes sense,” Coyne said. However, he added that Samford has “zero desire to gobble up Homewood,” and the university has been “very aggressive about wanting to maintain their relationship with the neighborhood and the community.”

While the university-owned houses only make up a small percentage of homes in Homewood, Wright said student housing can change the character of a neighborhood through parking problems, parties and non-family residents. He said the purchases “transformed our neighborhood into something not really conducive for Homewood,” which partly led to the moratorium.

Anne Baldwin, a resident of Windsor Boulevard for two years, can see the freshmen parking deck from her front porch and her neighbors across the street are students and faculty who live in Samford-owned homes.

“Let’s just say that deck is very active,” she said, citing noises similar to drag races and parties at night. When she moved in she wasn’t aware that Samford owned certain houses on the street, and she might not have purchased her home had she known. 

While Baldwin doesn’t have issues with the students who live near her, she said there have been problems with parking and congestion.

“I would prefer if we didn’t have students living across from us,” she said. But, she added she is friendly with some employees and professors living there. “I love this street. Most of it is families.”

Eddie McJunkin, who is a Samford alumnus and has lived on Saulter Road for 30 years, has no complaints about his proximity to the school and his neighbors who are students.

“They cause no harm. They’re a great bunch of guys,” he said.

“For the most part, I hear good things. And I think that people believe that — and again I think this is a result of a lot of good work over the past few years,” said Wyatt. “And issues are going to come up amongst neighbors, there’s no way to avoid that.”

On versus off campus

Students, who have previously lived mostly on campus for a majority or all of their college years, have transitioned to living off campus thanks to the university’s motivation to house students coming in with rising enrollment.

“My junior year, because it [the university] started growing so much, they started giving incentives for people to move off campus,” said Grace Bowes, who graduated this spring with a marketing degree. Because of Samford’s former rule that students couldn’t live off campus until they were 21 years old, Bowes, along with many other students, were confined to campus. 

“There is a very real need for on-campus housing if you look at persistence,” Coyne said. Persistence, he explained, refers to the degree to which a student continues at the university and ultimately earns their degree. On campus housing also helps provide for social integration into their college community. “Students who live off campus just do not persist as well.”

Samford has since re-evaluated their rule and has recently allowed students under 21 to apply to live off campus, making room for growing class sizes.

“They were kind of offering $500 in Bulldog Bucks, and you got your [housing] deposit back … So I just took the opportunity, and [I lived in] WildForest [Apartments] for the past two years,” Bowes said.

According to U.S. News and World Report, Bowes is one of approximately 1,500 students who live off campus now, the majority of whom live in local apartment complexes or houses. 

When looking for housing, many students said they were mainly concerned with the cost and the location, which led them to apartments. 

“We never really wanted to look at a house,” said senior marketing and entrepreneurship major and recent graduate Cameron Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said for upperclassmen, there’s already enough to focus on rather than worrying about house and lawn upkeep, but proximity definitely played a part.

“We also looked at location — that was huge — we looked at a couple other complexes north of Samford’s campus, less Vestavia side of Homewood, more downtown side of Homewood,” he said. “In the end I’d say the big win was price and location.”

Bowes had similar reasoning for choosing to live at WildForest, which she said is a mainly student-filled complex.

“A lot of Samford students live there, and the proximity to Samford, is just, it’s obviously two seconds from Target, two seconds from the school, so it’s just super ideal,” she said.

Other students agreed that price and location were a major factor, but living off campus also allowed them to have more freedom and begin the transition into adult life.

While there will always be some students who choose to live off campus — either through renting or through living at home — rather than living in a complex with other students, some upperclassmen, like Rivers, have remained on campus even with dwindling availability.

Rivers lived on campus all four years and chose to do so because of the environment it provides.

“I know [Residence Life] has been a really positive experience for me,” he said. Rivers applied to be a resident assistant his senior year, and even though that didn’t work out, he said he “had planned to [stay on campus] just because of the positive experience I’ve had the other three years.”

Samford has appeared to remain on par with local apartment complexes as well, even with increasing room and board costs. Coyne added that the housing market sets the pricing, but the university tries to be as close to average as possible.

Since fall of 2011, costs have nearly doubled to range anywhere from $2,117 to $4,321 per semester, which breaks down to about $536 to $1,080 per month if using a four-month semester. Theses costs also don’t include mandatory meal plans, which range from $1,134 to $2,361 per semester.

While initial apartment costs may appear to be drastically higher for local apartments, many students will split the costs based on the number of bedrooms in their apartments and lower initial costs drastically.

WildForest, a popular apartment complex near Samford’s campus, boasts monthly fees from $1,420 to $1,665 for a three-bedroom apartment. When broken down per person, students may be paying anywhere from $473 to $555 per month over the course of a year, excluding the cost of monthly utilities and additional amenities.

Even a private home for rent that is three bedrooms may run around $1,800 per month, but if three students live there, the base price falls to around $600 per student per month.

The only issue is finding those availabilities.

Looking forward

After some reflection, Joe Falconer, a real estate agent for RealtySouth and former Homewood council member, called affordable housing “a tough one.” 

In the last two to three years, he said there has been a lack of both affordable and available housing in Homewood for purchase or for rent. In January, for instance, he said he only had one or two homes for sale on the market, and none for rent.

Zillow, a popular website used for buying, selling or renting homes, only had two houses listed for rent under $1,500 per month and only two houses for sale under $200,000 as of mid-May. The farther renters look from the city, the more prices may drop, but at the exchange of significantly greater traffic and commute times.

“I have more buyers than sellers. There is no supply, yet there’s a huge demand,” Falconer said. The “huge demand” for rentals is affected by students looking to rent houses, too, because they are competing with families who are looking for residences that are served by good schools for their children. 

“Homewood is a city of single-family dwellings,” he said.

While often university growth can mean more student and resident interaction, Samford is working to increase housing availability for its students on campus. In a four-part master plan, the school will look to renovate and relocate multiple facilities in the university, as well as increase residence-hall size to mitigate growth and influence in the community.

“I don’t think any of the residents would like there to be a ton of students living [near them],” Wyatt said.

Because they are students, they have completely different schedules than typical adults who work a day job, he said.

“[That] doesn’t make them bad,” Wyatt said. “You’re on a different schedule doing different things, and that creates some inconveniences.”

But inconveniences can include a shortage of housing options.

By increasing the amount of student housing on campus, Samford officials are hoping to relieve stress between community members and students, as well as provide students with a larger variety of housing options.

“I think it’s safe to say that we expect to grow at a very deliberate pace, but not at a pace that would stress, by any construct of the imagination, Homewood or our community,” Coyne said. He said Samford has grown so much that the freshman classes, which previously were confined to two residence halls, have spread elsewhere on campus.

“That’s bad,” he said. “We want all of our freshmen together.”

To alleviate housing issues, the university is working on a master plan for the future.

“What we’re striving for is to create a housing mix that [suites multiple needs] while remaining true to the values of the university,” Coyne said. 

Starting this July, additional Greek housing will be open and provide an extra 70 beds. The plan also looks at building additions on the women’s freshman dorm, Vail, which would add 200 beds, Coyne said.

The university has played with the possibility of building a new freshmen residence halls or “taking over” upperclassmen dorms, too. Coyne said the idea is to expand freshman housing on the central campus, although they have yet to solidify long-term plans; they are still looking at all options.

But, even if Samford decided immediately they wanted to build additional housing, Coyne said it wouldn’t be available before fall 2019.

Many students said they are in favor of the moves the university has made, and are excited to see where it goes in the future.

“Samford encourages growth, and we have these incoming freshman classes that are huge,” said finance and management major and recent graduate Kay Caldwell. “I think it’s about time.”

Caldwell said when she first came to Samford as a freshman, the campus felt a little small, but moving off campus opened her eyes to how the university has grown in recent years.

“I think we’ve gotten a little bit ahead of ourselves,” she said. “Which is exciting, but a little dangerous.”

Look in next month’s issue of The Homewood Star for a closer look at Samford’s role in parking and transportation, both on campus and in the community.