According to a Retail Traffic report, universities are increasingly looking at building mixed-used projects on campuses that provide housing and a host of retail outlets for students, faculty and administration personnel.
A current example is a plan for a 38-acre site on the East Campus of the University of Maryland in College Park that will include administrative offices, graduate student housing, professional offices and retail space. Foulger-Pratt and Argo Investment are behind the project's development.
In College Park and elsewhere, merchants including bookstores, clothing stores, fast casual restaurants, grocery outlets (Whole Foods is one) and others are opening new locations for business.
Not all campuses, according to Jeff Green, president of Jeff Green Partners, are meant for large-scale commercial development. The best candidates, he told Retail Traffic, are prestigious private universities that have large numbers of students from affluent families.
Commercial development on campuses has become increasingly popular with schools looking to develop new revenue streams.
Development Design Group is working on a 114,620-square-foot mixed-use redevelopment at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. Roy Higgs, CEO and managing partner with the Baltimore-based planning, architecture and design firm, said the project makes sense with "a high visitor component because of the students' families, plus you've got the increasingly higher spending power of the student body itself."
Discussion Questions: What do you see as the college campus opportunity for retail stores? Will retailers be increasingly drawn to college campuses and other mixed-used retail projects because of factors such as high gas prices? Is there a significant competitive advantage associated with being located on a mixed-used project's grounds than, say, just down the road from it?