Illinois Central College is ending on-campus student housing at its East Peoria campus this summer.
The Central Illinois community college began offering on-campus housing in 2004. The WoodView Commons Apartments, managed by Illinois Central Student Housing LLC, are designed for up to 320 students.
Bruce Budde, ICC's executive vice president for administration and finance, said the way state law works for community colleges, any on-campus housing has to be managed by a separate legal entity. However, the management company exists under the umbrella of ICC’s Educational Foundation.
Budde said WoodView Commons’ board of managers became aware of a number of required upgrades and maintenance to areas such as the 20-year-old facility’s stairwells.
“The Student Housing LLC didn’t have, really, the cash flow to make that happen,” said Budde. “So, they really had to kind of push the reset button and say, ‘We really are not comfortable leasing in the fall. We need to figure out what the long-term plan and future of the complex is.’”
About 250 students are leasing apartments in WoodView Commons for the current spring semester, said Budde. About 100 of those students will be graduating or finishing programs after this semester, leaving about 150 students in need of a long-term solution.
Budde said the college hosted three informational meetings and is working on a list of possible off-campus housing options for out-of-district students that will need somewhere to stay this summer and next fall.
“We may find, in some cases, [there] may be better opportunities, because we have some students that are in housing that are actually taking courses and classes at the Peoria campus,” he said.
“So we’re really fully engaged. Myself, vice president of student services [Jon Neidy] and our marketing vice president [Kim Armstrong], we’re all very much engaged and doing what we can to make sure our students’ needs are taken care of.”
Budde said ICC was somewhat unique in offering on-campus housing as a community college in the first place, pointing out many community colleges offering housing through a partnership with a property management service have their facilities located nearby or fully off-campus.
“I think it’s best, sometimes, when it’s because of the legal restriction, we want to make sure that everything is at arm's length, as far as not pulling the colleges into the … ownership of the operation of the housing itself,” said Budde.
The possible end of on-campus housing at ICC, he said, is a combination of things: it’s both a loss of a potential offering to attract out-of-district students and an opportunity for the junior college to re-evaluate how it approaches student housing.
“I think that’s still to come, as far as how I think [student housing] is going to look,” said Budde. “And I think offering it is important, or having those options available, because we have, for our sports teams that like to be a little closer, for international students. We have some regional programs that are a draw and I think we still want to accommodate those needs.”
ICC plans to hold at least one more informational meeting with students seeking housing options after they return from spring break in two weeks.
