ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
MEMO: NOTE: Also ran in Metro edition July 18, 1996.
Korean student Ariel Jang arrived in town last month, her second of two stays at U.S. universities as she spends this year learning English.
In San Diego, she quickly found a room via plentiful student advertising. In Blacksburg, she sublet an apartment for July from Korean friends. After that?
Your guess is as good as hers. Apparently, Blacksburg is running low on off-campus housing for the coming school year.
"It's impossible, looking for a room for six months," Jang said.
If the shortage is most immediately critical to international students like Jang, here to study at Virginia Tech's Language Institute, the rest of Tech's student body is feeling the pinch, too.
"The traffic has been unreal this late in the season," said John Whitt, property manager for the Stonegate and Carlton Scott apartment complexes in Blacksburg .
"It's just been really bad for people coming in and trying to make sure they get something because so many people got kicked off campus," he said.
About 900 upperclassmen who had hoped to return to dorm life were bumped off campus to make way for a larger freshman class, said Ed Spencer, Tech's assistant vice president for student affairs.
As of last week, 5,157 freshmen were ready to come to Tech, but about 4,800 are expected when school officially opens in late August, Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said. They're helping to boost enrollment by 200 to 400 students more than last year, to nearly 24,000, Hincker said.
All of the freshmen get one of the campus residence halls' 8,400 beds, Spencer said.
At the same time, "we have had increasing numbers of students wanting to live on campus," Spencer said.
"I think we have to be careful not to jump to the conclusion there's not enough housing," Spencer said. "The dilemma all of us may be faced with is people consuming more units."
In other words, students seem to be less inclined to quadruple up in a four-bedroom, off-campus apartment, preferring one- or two-bedroom places, he said.
Pinning down the exact number of apartments available for Blacksburg students is difficult. Some apartment complexes set aside rentals for professionals or graduate students, and rental managers find the number of units they manage varies from year to year.
But 229 apartments are under construction, and many will be open by the time school starts, said Duane Hyde, who oversees construction for Blacksburg's planning department.
"I can't believe there's a shortage of apartments around here after all the building that's been going on around here the past two years," said Harvey Shepherd, executive director of the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce.
"I haven't heard there's a shortage. I do know there's a plan at Virginia Tech to increase freshmen," he said.
Townside Inc. Realtors property manager Russ MacDonald sees the boon to local rental owners as one that the town likely would have faced late next month, anyway.
"It could be all the tenants who used to wait and shop in August have done their shopping already," MacDonald said.
The test will come "if we end up getting a flood of people looking for stuff over the next five weeks."
But back at Squires Student Center, the director of Tech's off-campus housing center continues to hear "the frustration, the anger, the 'What am I supposed to do'"
"My understanding is, this is the second year this has occurred; I don't know whether severe is the right word, but it's more serious than what occurred last year," said Karen Frazier, who took over the student-run office this past spring.
Most rental owners and managers who list with the office "at this point are indicating they do not have anything available," Frazier said.
Her advice to students who call with no apartment for the school year? "Come to Blacksburg as soon as you can."
Whitt, whose complexes have been filled since January, had this advice:
"I tell people, pick up an apartment guide. There are still units out there. A lot of them are kind of owner-managed, just small units scattered here and there," he said.
"If people would double up, I don't think there would be nearly as much problem," he said.
Meantime, the language institute is looking for short-term housing for international students, most of whom stay for three to six months.
Anyone with information about off-campus housing can contact the Virginia Tech Off-Campus Housing Center, 121 Squires Student Center on the Tech campus. Call (540) 231-3466, or e-mail vtoch@vt.edu.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB