Monmouth U leases units at Pier Village
Developer says less than 5% of units will be student housing
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

Pier Village, an upscale mixed-use development located in one of Long Branch’s oceanfront redevelopment zones, will be housing college students in September.

Monmouth University, West Long Branch, announced last week that it will lease 21 of the 320 units at Pier Village to “meet student demand for housing,” according to Petra Ludwig, director of public affairs.

Greg Russo, vice president of Applied Development Co., Hoboken, the developer that constructed Pier Village on a 10-acre tract that extends from Laird Street to Melrose Terrace, said students will occupy less than 5 percent of the project.

“We do not exclude students,” he said. “In a lot of our other projects we have rented to students.

“It is a small number of units. It has never been a problem.”

Russo said Applied has leased units for student housing at some of its other developments including New Brunswick, Hoboken, Fort Lee and Morristown.

“It is not unusual to see this happen,” Howard H. Woolley, the city business administrator said about college students living in development projects. “We have had problems in the past with students who rent single-family homes.”

“We find students do much better in rental units.”

He added that Pier Village is a rental housing complex and anyone that qualifies financially can occupy a unit.

Monmouth University has an enrollment of 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students, said Ludwig, who added that Pier Village, situated on the oceanfront, is a great location.

The university houses 1,500 students on campus and a total of 850 students off-campus in nonuniversity housing complexes, she said.

According to Ludwig, four students will be housed in each two-bedroom unit. The units range in size from 1,000 to 1,500 square feet and the housing cost starts at $1,700.

“Three staff people will live onsite, a full-time resident life professional and two graduate student managers,” Ludwig said.

“The city is very optimistic that Monmouth has taken a controlled approach,” Woolley said.

She said that junior and senior students in good academic standing, who are not on probation and have high grade point averages, will be housed at Pier Village.

Students will be housed at Pier Village for one academic year, and Ludwig said a decision on additional years will be made at a later date.

Students will be paying a room and board tuition through the university at an average monthly rate of $670 to $720, according to Ludwig.

The arrangement is nothing new to the university, Ludwig said.

Since September 2000, about 150 students per year have been housed at the Esplanade Hotel on Route 36 in West Long Branch and last year 70 students were housed at the Fountain Gardens Apartment complex on Ocean Avenue.

Ludwig said 77 students will continue to be housed at Fountain Gardens for the next academic year.

The contract with the Esplanade ends after this academic year, so Ludwig said other resources were needed to house students.

Pier Village is a $100-million redevelopment project that attracted such interest that in January, when Applied began leasing the luxury apartments, the waiting list had grown to more than 1,000 names, the developer’s representatives said at the time.

Russo predicted at the time that all of the units would be leased by the end of the year and he said on Monday that the leasing is ahead of schedule

We have leased over 120 units already,” he said.

He added that residents began occupying the units in February.

The housing units, which are constructed above 100,000 square-feet of retail space, include studio apartments marketed from $1,150 that range in size from 600 to 700 square-feet; one bedroom units that start at $1,300 and range from 700 to 900 square-feet; two-bedroom units that start at $1,700 and range from 1,000 to 1,500 square-feet; and three-bedroom apartments that start at $3,600 and range from 1,700 to 1,950 square-feet.

Pier Village comprises four buildings, two of which will be constructed on the beach and two that will be built behind the beach buildings to the west of the ocean, according to Russo.

Tenants of the retail space include McCloone’s Pier House restaurant, Island Trading Co., an upscale women’s and men’s boutique, It’s Greek to Me of Holmdel and The Turning Point of Holmdel, both eateries, Ladies Workout Express and Kidegories of Shrewsbury.

Ludwig said student demand is reevaluated every year.

“The university enters these type of arrangements on a year-to-year basis,” she said. “Some students prefer to live off-campus but still have a connection to the university by living at Fountain Gardens or Pier Village.”