20 Hawley St., the apartment complex that Alfred Weissman Real Estate Group is developing in Downtown Binghamton for Binghamton University students, will open in August 2012, according to Kathleen LaBarre, the building’s property manager.
The apartments at 20 Hawley St. were originally set to open to student occupants this fall, but in March property owners Alan and Alfred Weissman announced that an “unexpected delay in the removal of the asbestos” would prevent this from happening until fall 2012. More than 200 students who had signed leases to begin living at 20 Hawley St. this fall were then forced to make alternative living arrangements for the 2011-12 school year.
The project is still on pace to meet the goal of opening by fall 2012, according to LaBarre. She said the asbestos has been totally removed, but the apartments are not yet complete, as workers continue to install insulation.
She said many students have expressed interest in living at 20 Hawley St. when it finally opens, despite its problems in the past.
“We already have a waiting list for students wanting to live here,” LaBarre said.
20 Hawley St. will have an occupancy of 291. Move-in day is currently set for August 15.
Development of 20 Hawley St.. began in fall 2010 to turn what was then an empty office building into an apartment complex. According to 20 Hawley St.’s website, the apartment complex will include a gym, movie theater and paid underground parking for residents.
The building, which bills itself as “the newest luxury student housing project in Binghamton,” will offer one- to five-bedroom apartments. The apartments were priced from $750 to $850 per month per student last semester before the announcement of the project’s delay.
LaBarre said that up-to-date information on apartment rates would be forthcoming this week.
20 Hawley St.’s website stated at press time that rates information will be “available very soon.”
20 Hawley Street is one of several student-housing developments under construction in Downtown Binghamton. Others include Twin River Commons on Washington Street, which will also open in August 2012, and the Midtown Mall building on Chenango Street, which developer Larry Gladstone is planning to turn into “University Lofts” by a date yet to be specified, according to a report in the Press & Sun-Bulletin.
Tom Costello, the supervisor of building and construction for the city of Binghamton, said that an increase in student housing developments in the Downtown area is being caused by zoning regulations elsewhere in Binghamton that make building student housing difficult or impossible.
“There’s a reduced number of zoning districts available in the city, so the allowed uses become more restricted in terms of housing,” Costello said.
Binghamton’s R-1 zoning ordinance, for example, stipulates that only people considered to be a “factual and functional” family may live together in certain areas of Binghamton’s West Side.
“A functional family is a distinction between a group of individuals who are temporarily living together at random and a group of individuals who have some sort of set relationship and are living together for an undetermined amount of time,” Costello said.