The Varsity
Off-campus apartments increase security after rash of College Park crimes
By Annika McGinnis, The Diamondback (Feb. 14, 2013)
Kelsea Gerrety and Adrian Dipple were eating breakfast in Stamp Student Union at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
There, in a bustling hub of morning student activity, the juniors felt safe. But anywhere off the campus, or after dark, was a different story.
“We commute; he won’t walk to my car alone at 9 p.m.,” Gerrety, a psychology major, said.
“I feel like during the day it’s OK, but not any time after that,” added Dipple, a nutrition science major.
In the wake of an off-campus murder-suicide and four armed robberies on and off the campus in the past three weeks, the two are part of a growing number of students concerned about their personal safety. And although several apartment and business owners in the city said they’re heightening security measures in response, many said there’s only so much they can do.
“It’s more and more things that are happening,” said Marti Rowntree, Parkside at College Park owner. “After that one shooting in Connecticut, a couple days later there was another shooting in another school, then a couple of days later another shooting. Like, can we just deal with this already?”
There have been reports of four armed robberies since Jan. 27: in The Varsity, on Route 1 in front of Shanghai Cafe, on Lakeland Road and in Lot KK, an incident University Police spokesman Maj. Marc Limansky called the first on-campus armed robbery in 13 months. And early Tuesday morning, two students died and one was injured in a murder-suicide.
At The Varsity on Jan. 27, a man reportedly displayed a fake handgun and demanded a resident’s laptop. Management at The Varsity did not respond to phone calls or emails for comment, but The Diamondback previously reported the apartment complex temporarily increased patrol following the incident. Still, city councilman Patrick Wojahn said security can be improved.
“In The Varsity, there’s a problem with people leaving the back doors open,” he said.
Next door at the University View, management plans to implement ID scanners and has increased nighttime and weekend security, General Manager Sabrina Hunt wrote in an email. At the Enclave, property manager Marco, who asked to be anonymous for confidentiality with ownership, said security measures are already strong, with video cameras, elevator lock access and security guards on duty 12 hours a day.
Despite the steps managements are taking to protect residents, one of the biggest issues is students when they allowing “piggybacking” and unknowingly let strangers into otherwise secure buildings, Hunt wrote.
For instance, in early January at Parkside at College Park, a management assistant noticed a suspicious man “tailgating” into Parkside as residents were leaving. The assistant, who asked not to be named for personal reasons, said the man left after he saw that she noticed him. She didn’t see him again — until she noticed his photo in a recent article after police arrested him in connection with the Varsity robbery.
“I don’t think anything’s 100 percent foolproof — things can happen any place, any time,” Rowntree said. “We constantly drill into them ‘Be careful when you come in; don’t let anyone you don’t know in.’”
Though Rowntree said Parkside has a good security system with high-tech video surveillance cameras, she said she doesn’t see enough of a police presence around her apartment complex.
“When there’s nothing going on, you don’t see them,” she said. “They’re not going through the neighborhoods … there should be more patrols on bikes in this area.”
In the next couple of months, the College Park City Council plans to address that issue and increase University Police jurisdiction to places including Lakeland, Crystal Springs and Calvert Hills, councilman Marcus Afzali said. The council will also explore adding more security cameras, Wojahn said, as well as lights on the street, councilman Robert Day added.
Senior family science major David Yeom said he’s already seen more police on the streets when driving in the evening. Sunny Lee, a junior mechanical engineering major, said police brought her home Sunday night after noticing her waiting outside alone.
Employees at local businesses are also feeling anxious about the recent surge in crime.
At Subway on Route 1, assistant manager Regina Brown is very concerned about employees’ safety, especially at night. On Jan. 27, three people were charged with robbing and punching a student in front of Shanghai Cafe next door. Brown said that although Subway closes at 10 or 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, some workers don’t leave until around midnight.
“Sometimes we have just females working,” Brown said. “Sometimes we don’t know if someone’s watching us when we’re trying to lock up the store — we don’t know if someone’s going to rob us.”
A few times, Brown said, she was working late after the restaurant closed, and people were arguing outside and pushing against the door “like they were trying to get in.”
“If the door is open, what are we going to do?” Brown said.
But down the street at new vegan and vegetarian restaurant Ovo Simply Veggie, owner Derrick Chang said he’s not as concerned about the recent crime.
Chang said he sees a heavy police presence on Route 1, and he doesn’t keep his store open past 10 p.m. He also keeps windows uncovered to increase store visibility and deals mostly in credit card purchases to avoid holding large quantities of cash. He also puts in extra effort to make sure his workers make it home safely — because the real danger is outside the restaurant.
“When we close, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll actually go out to the car,” Chang said. “We leave the store together in a group. They will go straight home.”
Many business owners, city and university officials and students said it’s most important to make responsible personal decisions, because they can’t rely only on the measures in place.
“I feel like sometimes people forget that Maryland isn’t an island; it’s an open campus, so anyone can be here at any time,” said senior environmental science and public policy major Aziz Sani. “You can’t be oblivious — at Regents Drive, Knox, even Route 1, you have to be observant at any time.”
Coming from a very safe neighborhood, freshman psychology major Camille Merai said she has to remind herself that different precautions are needed here.
“I feel less safe, because I’m one of those people that would be walking home at 2 in the morning,” she said.
More students should also be taking advantages of the resources the university offers, such as Nite Ride and the police escort service, said Shannon Gundy, undergraduate admissions director.
Although university services offer students some protection, more can be done to cut back on crime, community leaders say. Day said the city and university community must work together to make safety a priority.
“We need to be realistic and realize we are on this Earth, and anything can happen anywhere,” he said. “We need to keep our eyes and ears open. The students need to look out for residents, and the residents need to look out for the students. That’s what being a community is all about.”
Scaling (and building) up: College Park high-rise apartment complexes fill up as more slated for construction
By Annika McGinnis, The Diamondback (Nov. 4, 2013)
To long-term College Park residents, it would seem the city had transformed almost overnight.
Seven years ago, the city had a different character, lacking any of the large-scale, high-rise apartment complexes that have since instilled an urban feel in College Park.
But since 2006, a wave of developments has brought five upscale apartment complexes to the city, most recently the luxury complex Domain on Campus Drive. And the city’s housing market saw the sudden influx of thousands of new beds, most designated specifically for students.
Despite the rapid growth in the off-campus housing market, occupancy rates at newer complexes increased this year to almost 100 percent, College Park Economic Development Coordinator Michael Stiefvater wrote in an email. The Enclave, Mazza Grandmarc, the View and The Varsity had a combined 97.4 percent occupancy, and 88 beds out of 3,458 were empty. That’s a 3.4 percent increase from last year, when Stiefvater wrote the average occupancy rates were 94 percent at those same complexes.
Even some of the older properties saw more students move in. University Club is 100 percent occupied, said manager Rhoda Mancuso — a jump from early last semester, when rates had fallen to the upper 80s. Parkside is 99 percent full this year, compared to about 80 percent last year, said management assistant Lavania Brown.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Efforts to expand the area’s housing options aren’t anywhere near complete. The development pipeline has at least five new large-scale projects in the works that could bring about 2,300 residential units: the Maryland Book Exchange; Knox Village; the Metropolitan and Monument Village (both of which are planned for north of Route 193); and the Cafritz project in Riverdale.
The thriving housing market and continued expansion reflect the growth of the broader Washington area in the past few years, Stiefvater wrote. College Park’s population in 2012 was 31,208, according to the Census Bureau — about a 27 percent increase from 2000.
“With our proximity to DC and access to Baltimore, improving schools, and efforts to improve the Route 1 Corridor, the area should attract interest to these developments,” Stiefvater wrote.
First to come will be the redevelopment of the Maryland Book Exchange across from the university’s Regents Drive entrance. The complex is breaking ground this semester and will offer 287 units in fall 2015.
The Cafritz development, which will bring 855 housing units, 190 townhomes and the county’s first Whole Foods Market to Riverdale Park, may begin construction this fall. Two projects, Monument Village and the Metropolitan, could also break ground this winter or spring, bringing 459 apartments, 55 townhomes and retail about a mile north of the campus on Route 1. And Knox Village, which aims to replace most of the Knox Box apartments, will begin construction this summer.
IMPACT ON STUDENTS
Increased occupancies and the prospect of more housing could help alleviate traditionally overflowing housing on the campus and bring more students closer to the university, said Carlo Colella, administration and finance vice president.
“All of our on-campus housing beds have been occupied, if not 100 percent, then nearly 100 percent. We’ve had waiting lists for housing for the past several years,” he said. “More student apartments will meet more needs … if there are students living a mile-and-a-half away because the apartments right on the edge of campus are full.”
The university’s on-campus housing options accommodate about 12,000 students — about 44 percent of the university’s undergraduate enrollment. In fall 2011, Oakland Hall’s opening contributed to the greatest number of students in university housing to that point in the school’s history: 11,849 students. This occurred “even in light of continuing expansion in off-campus housing,” according to a student housing market analysis published in 2011 by university consulting firm Anderson Strickler, LLC.
This year, the university is housing about the same number — 11,857 students — and plans to continue expanding on-campus housing options with the opening of Prince Frederick Hall in fall 2014.
Fostering the expansion of new off-campus options is part of the university’s plan, Colella said. Even though they own private properties, owners of The Varsity, the View, the Metropolitan and Monument Village came to the university to discuss the complexes’ architecture, proposed amenities and more before construction.
IMPACT ON FACULTY AND STAFF
The university is also pushing for most faculty and staff to live nearby. About 4 percent of faculty and staff live in College Park, according to a 2012 report by Anderson Strickler.
“There’s a lot of wonderful things about the university on evenings and weekends,” Colella said. “Those families of faculty and staff members who live a distance from the campus, they don’t take advantage of all the benefits that are here.”
Domain — the first nonstudent apartment complex built in College Park since Camden College Park opened in 2007 near Ikea — opened in late June and is now 56 percent full, said Domain community director Tommy Skordas.
Domain sells its units for a significantly steeper price than nearby complexes. But it’s targeting a different, more “professional” market, Skordas said. Half of its residents are university faculty; 15 percent are graduate students, and 25 percent are professionals. About 10 percent of the complex’s occupancy is made up of undergraduate students.
With more apartment housing, officials aim to reduce the number of students saturating city neighborhoods and make room for faculty members Colella said.
“For people who live nearby, it’s easier for them to get to work. They can walk; they can bike; they can take a short bike ride; they can participate more with university activities,” Colella said. “That has an effect on the campus directly.”
Annika McGinnis 