Next fall, some “on-campus” students will be living in apartments on the west side of the train tracks after Harshman Hall closes permanently this spring.

“Harshman will close at the end of this academic year, in part because we have been planning for this for about the last five to six years,” Director of Residence Life Sarah Waters said.

The residence hall currently houses about 550 students and has had capacity of 600 beds for the last three years since two of its wings closed to students. With admission numbers trending up for the past few years, the University is now facing a shortage of beds.

To help combat this shortage, the University has come to an agreement with Greenbriar, a local rental company, and will be leasing four apartment buildings on North Enterprise for the next three to five years. The University will then lease the spaces directly to the students, like the current process for the residence halls.

The buildings have one, two, three and four bed apartments; some three bedroom apartments have a room with two beds.

“So we picked up about 190 spaces there that we’ll be targeting not to first year students, so it’ll be for returning (students),” Waters said. “We will have some students that won’t be able to live on-campus as they have historically been able to.”

About 600 students who do not need to live on-campus do so anyways. Of those 600, about 200 are staff members or live in the Greek Village. Of the remaining 400 students living on-campus who do not need to, about 200 of them will be denied University housing.

Those 200 students will have to seek off-campus housing for next school year.

Housing will be guaranteed for all first and second-year students, and upperclassman living in Greek Housing to fulfill chapter requirements. Students with scholarship-paid housing will be given priority.

“We are planning to reserve some spaces for third, fourth and fifth year full scholarship students. There will be an application process for those students to request housing based on their specific need,” Waters said.

Harshman Hall was originally scheduled to close to students in spring  2016, but it remained open to meet demand. This year, however, that is not an option. Summer of 2017 there will be an electrical load upgrade project, but Harshman is not planned to receive the upgrade.

“It would be incredibly expensive to invest in re-setting up Harshman,” Bob Waddle, assistant vice president of capital planning, said.

All other buildings on campus will get an upgrade to electrical load this summer.

Harshman Hall has been scheduled to close since 2010 after the completion of a master housing plan. At that time, many of Harshman’s systems had an expected longevity of about ten years.

Even though Kreischer and Harshman were built at the same time, Kreischer has no plans to close.

“We’ve invested funds differently in Kreischer,” Waters said.

Kreischer is closer to the core of campus, located right across from the Recreation Center and next to the Wolfe Center. It has had more capital improvement investments in last few years, including the new fire system. The brick has been sealed recently.

The Office of Residence Life intends to have a staff presence at the apartments, likely in the form of an RA.

“To have a point of contact…in your home community is something we’re committed to,” Waters said.

This is not the first time the University has leased apartment buildings from Greenbriar.

About ten years ago, the University leased the same buildings, as well as the Columbia Court apartments, Beth Maurer, an owner of Greenbriar, said.

According to BG News articles in 2004 and 2006, previous leasing agreements weren’t as smoothly handled as expected. Greenbriar tenants then were displaced from their apartments after the lease was signed, or forced to live amongst underclassmen.

Those troubles were partly due to the University, who didn’t realize the lack of housing until December.

This year, however, the University contacted rental companies approximately a month ago, Maurer said. “(It is a) different scenario this time around.”

Students living in the apartments will be able to park in the lots provided by Greenbriar. The University has yet to decide what kind of parking passes will be issued to the students living on North Enterprise.

Maintenance at the apartment buildings will be handled by Greenbriar.

Harshman’s replacement will not come around until 2020 or 2022, Waters said. The location of a potential new residence hall is also unknown.

“We’ve talked about a number of locations, and a lot of it gets driven by what’s going to be the right size,” Waddle said. “As we’re looking at enrollment projections…that’s then going to drive what’s our required bed count.”

Waters and Waddle both mentioned the green space next to Anderson Arena as a viable potential location for a new residence hall.

“We’re really looking to condense campus,” Waddle said.

Although the housing prices for next year will not be approved by the Board of Trustees until February, the apartments will likely be placed at the same cost tier as Centennial and Falcon Heights.

As details are finalized, the Office of Residence Life will communicate the changes and processes students will have to be aware of to live in the apartments or seek off-campus housing.

The agreement made is a one-year lease extendable by up to four individual years; the University expects to lease the buildings for the next three to five years.

“We look forward to working with BGSU and providing students with housing,” Maurer said.