Bringing them back

Robert Baldi lived in Hill College House for only the first few days of his freshman year before moving out.

Now a College senior, Baldi has lived in an apartment in Rittenhouse Square for the last four years, giving him "a much different Penn experience than most people."

"I had a much better taste of Philadelphia," he said.

And as an increasing number of students choose to live off campus, either because of a lack of University housing or in order to pursue a different lifestyle, Penn is currently sponsoring a spate of development projects designed to bring students back to campus.

Three main residential buildings - the HUB, Domus and the 3900 block apartments - will offer student housing closer to campus. The University hopes for a twofold result: offering more housing options to students, as well as relieving excess demand for housing in surrounding communities.

A large student population in West Philadelphia can hamper the neighborhood's ability to attract families, said School of Social Policy and Practice professor Dennis Culhane.

"Only about 20 percent of the housing units in University City are owner-occupied, which is quite low," he wrote in an e-mail. The remaining units are mostly rented out.

The market for college-student housing proves attractive to investors, who convert single-family homes into apartments, Culhane added.

University archivist Mark Lloyd said the shortage of on-campus housing began in the 1970s, when Penn changed from a regional school for commuter students to an international school for residential students.

"All those off-campus students now needed a home in West Philadelphia," Lloyd said.

The large influx of students since that time has occasionally led to tensions between them and non-student residents, said Barry Grossbach, chairman of the Spruce Hill Community Association zoning committee.

"Students assume that everyone lives the kind of lifestyle they do," Grossbach said, adding that noise and trash issues put "certain kinds of pressures on the community."

And with their transient nature, student residents tend to invest little in the neighborhood community, leading to developmental problems, Grossbach said.

Penn has tried hard to attract residents to these neighborhoods by funding local schools and creating a mortgage program for potential homeowners, said Lori Brennan, spokeswoman for the University City District organization.

"Many people choose to live here because they want the culture and intellectual capital of the University," Brennan said.

But Penn's attempts to bring students back to campus via new residences might prove ineffective.

Students may still choose to live off campus because of the desire to live with friends or have more personal space, said Office of Off-Campus Living Director Miki Farcas.

And that possibility, Grossbach said, has local organizations waiting to see what impact projects like HUB and Domus will have.

"As goes the school, so goes the neighborhood," he said.

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