Perhaps the West Side Neighborhood Association will relent in two years when the doors to Campus Suites, an apartment complex with all the trimmings slated to rise in Downtown Binghamton, open and the Binghamton University students file in.
As Ellie Farfaglia, president of the Landlord Association of Broome County contends, the complex may well hurt the Downtown real estate market (see Page 1). But Farfaglia knows why her organization finds itself where it does.
Campus Suites, likely to materialize as an updated facsimile of University Plaza, is to be built by the same people behind the latter, Newman Development. The obvious economics play in: per person, the apartments will likely go for at least double the rent of a standard off-campus student home, creating a clear windfall for backers.
But it’s the R-1 zoning laws, which have forced the eviction of students who attempted to live in parts of Binghamton’s West Side and for which the WSNA is a proponent, that piques students’ interest in new housing.
Now, when Campus Suites rises, even more students will pass up West Side housing for a living space that has been built, essentially, for them. The LABC doesn’t want to see it happen, but the WSNA won’t budge.
On the corner of Washington Street and Riverside Drive, the new complex makes good on UP’s most noticeable shortcoming: location. There will be no townie neighbors to disturb, no unresponsive landlords to argue with and no board looking for eviction all within a stone’s throw of the Rat!
Of course, the City of Binghamton wants the apartments too (though we do find the involvement of Ken Kamlet, a Newman employee, with the city’s housing commission to be questionable). Students who can afford the apartments undoubtedly can afford to spend at local businesses.
Maybe with more students living closer to the heart of the city, pumping more money through it, the perpetually lamented town-gown relations will improve marginally. Either way, Campus Suites will be nice digs, assuming UP’s hospital-style corridors aren’t included. Most important, students will be welcomed there.
The WSNA wanted the students to go, and soon they will: across the river, with fat rent checks in hand.