Napa Valley Community College to offer dorms

The Napa Valley College District is moving forward with pre-development plans for on-campus student housing. The go-ahead nod means NVC would become one of just 12 community colleges of 114 in the state to embark on student housing.

The predevelopment phase is anticipated to take between 12 and 18 months, followed by state approvals, according to Robert Parker, assistant superintendent and vice president of administrative services, Napa Valley College. If the timeline goes as anticipated, construction would begin in May 2021. He said the college has been seriously considering campus housing for three years.

“The goal all along was to provide housing for our students that was below market rate,” Parker said.

“Scion determined after surveying our students that there was sufficient demand to support over 300 beds of student housing,” Parker said. “So it would appear that the demand would cover the cost of developing and maintaining the student housing complex on campus. We have unused land at the north end of our campus that has been designated.”

Scion’s study found that rental rates for on-campus student housing could range from $750 to $1,300 a month, depending on the size of the apartment. Comparatively, off-campus housing rates at the time of the study ran between $1,722 and $2,142 per month.

Parker noted that the on-campus apartments also would be fully furnished, as opposed to off-campus apartments.

“So if you factor that in, the rates are lower than the cost to furnish the apartment,” Parker said.

The college also is leaning toward going with a nonprofit organization to lease the ground where the housing will be constructed and issue tax-exempt bonds to fund the project, he said.

“We’re moving in that direction because it doesn’t increase the debt load or debt service on the college itself,” he said. “So at the end of the day, what that means is the local taxpayers are not paying for this facility because it’s being financed by the nonprofit.”