New dorm plan praised by many local residents

New dormitories should reduce the number of off-campus students. The people who have made University City their permanent home are ready and eager to help their transient neighbors pack their bags. With the projected addition of 870 beds to University on-campus housing by the middle of the next decade, Penn officials are hoping that more students will soon be hanging their "Home Sweet Home' signs east of 40th Street, and many area residents have their fingers crossed that the project will go through as currently planned. About 46 percent of Penn's 10,000 undergraduates currently live off campus. A decrease in the number of undergraduate students living off campus is the expected result of the University's recently unveiled 10-year, $300 million plan for major renovations to all on-campus housing and dining facilities. The plan also calls for the construction of two to five new dormitories in Superblock. Reaction from many community members to the new plan differs dramatically from the last time the University announced a construction plan this huge. Thirty years ago, Penn demolished the Hamilton Village neighborhood and built the high rises, low rises and Class of 1920 Commons in the area they renamed Superblock. "Whatever damage was done to the community was done at the time, and what's done with that space at this point would probably not be a bad thing," Spruce Hill resident Maria Oyaski said. The community members -- many of whom had not heard of the University's plan before a Daily Pennsylvanian reporter contacted them -- were happy that fewer undergraduates, who have proven to be difficult neighbors, are likely to live in off-campus areas. Area residents have, in fact, been asking University administrators to build more dormitories for undergraduates since 1995. "If that's the plan now, we are delighted," said Maria Hoke, a resident of Spruce Hill, the area encompassing 40th to 46th streets and Market Street to Woodland Avenue. "We have always enjoyed living around graduate students," said local resident Beth Ann Johnson, an advocate for the Walnut West branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. "But it can sometimes be a challenge to live around undergraduates because their main reason to move off campus is partying without restriction." But Mary Goldman, a community resident since 1959, said she thinks the new dormitories will not make a dent in the number of parties thrown by students living off campus. "Sororities and frats are not going to move back [on campus]," Goldman said. "People will want a place to party." Carol Scheman, the University's top community-relations official, labeled many of the problems as town-gown complications. "Even if one assumes that there isn't partying or drinking? there's problems with parking cars and lots of people going in and out." Residents and University officials alike hope that the undergraduates who do move on campus will be replaced by more-permanent graduate students and families. Joe Ruane, president of the Spruce Hill Community Association, said he hopes the plan will "make it a more adult community" in University City. He acknowledged, however, that "there's always going to be a move-in, move-out period regardless of how many dorms Penn builds." Despite other residents' enthusiasm, John Betak does not have high expectations as to how successful the project will be in decreasing the off-campus undergraduate population. "A few hundred beds doesn't put much of a dent in the undergraduate housing market," said Betak, who chairs the Spruce Hill Community Renewal Committee. Fellow resident Bill Magill, who has lived in the area for 14 years, agreed with Betak. "The housing density in the area won't really be affected," said Magill, a computer-network administrator at Penn. "So they add another [few hundred] beds -- it isn't going to make a big difference. The current state of the real estate market in the area is up." Goldman did express concern, however, about local landlords losing undergraduates as tenants. Recalling the situation a few years ago, Goldman said there were a significant number of vacancies in University City, including on 40th and 41st streets -- something she doesn't want to see happen again. "I'm just wondering if there's enough [students] to go around," Goldman said. On the other hand, Tim Wood, a University City resident and president of the University City Historical Society, is not afraid of the possibility of vacancies. "There's not a whole lot of apartments around, and hopefully this might alleviate some of that pressure." And as for how the new dorms would affect the 40th Street corridor -- soon to get a boost in the form of an arthouse cinema and specialty food market -- several residents were excited about the possibilities and believe that the University is moving in the right direction. Michele Richman, a French professor at Penn who lives in the neighborhood, said she believes the new dorms will have a positive effect on the area. "People in the community were very afraid that 40th Street would be viewed as a barrier rather than a gateway." Ruane also predicted that "putting more students in the Superblock area will certainly put more people on 40th Street." "It's supposed to be a main street, and these people would probably all live close enough that they would use it that way," Johnson added.