MU buys Tara Apartment Complex
Jan. 19, 2007
The expansion of the University Hospital and Clinics prompted MU to close University Terrace apartments and to purchase the Tara Apartment Complex off Ashland Gravel Road in order to accommodate graduate or married students who live in University Terrace.
Residential Life Director Frankie Minor said the sale was announced in early December and finalized on Jan. 9.
The Tara Apartment Complex, purchased for $15.7 million, will be available only to graduate, professional or married students, as well as students with families.
MU plans to close the University Terrace Apartments this summer to make way for a parking garage for the new Health Science Center. The deal will leave only three university-owned apartment complexes exclusively for graduate students.
"Before we announced the acquisition of Tara, what we told the students who are living in University Terrace is that we would have housing for them elsewhere in our facilities," Minor said. "So they had that first priority."
MU spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said the timing of the Tara Apartments acquisition was very convenient.
"The university has had a need for proximate, convenient and affordable housing for our graduate, professional and students with families for a while, and university officials have been looking for a solution to this challenge," she said. "Therefore, when Tara Apartments became available for sale, the university saw this as an opportunity to meet this need."
Residents who have a current lease will not be asked to move.
"Any resident who wishes to renew their contract under university ownership will be permitted to do so," Banken said.
Tara management notified residents through two letters taped to each door, one from Tara management in December and one from MU in January.
But future residents must be graduate or professional students, students with families or students who are over the age of 21.
Sisters Megan and Sarah Yañez have expressed contentment with the complex.
"It's quiet," Megan said. "They have 'no party' rules. You have to have your stereo turned down at 10 p.m. My last apartment was not like that."
But having read the letters, Megan is concerned that after she graduates, her sister will not be allowed to remain in the apartment.
"I think if I have the wording of the letter right, she can stay because she's a student and already a leaseholder here," Megan said. "But it was worded kind of funny, and it took me a while to figure out if she could even stay because obviously, they can't kick us out right away. We have a lease. But I'm sure she's allowed to come back next year."
Junior Bryan Lutz said he does not want to leave Tara Apartments.
"I think we're going to plan on staying," said Lutz, who lives with junior Claire Boucher. "Hopefully we're going to stay through next year."
Some residents expressed concern that maintenance under the university would not be of the same quality.
"I'm concerned that now that this has been purchased, it will just be pushed to the back and not get the same kind of maintenance," Sarah Yañez said.
Junior Kathryn Liljegren said Tara maintenance was responsible about plowing the parking lot after the recent winter storms.
"But now that we have switched to university maintenance, the parking lot isn't as nice as we'd hoped," she said.
The sale was finalized Jan. 9, but the process began as early as April 2006. Tara Apartments has 218 units — 76 more than the University Terrace has. Under university management, Tara residents will experience no price increase, but students moving from Terrace into Tara will have an increase in rent.
Minor said the response from the graduate and married student population has been positive. Two significant amenities available to students who move to Tara Apartments are its proximity to MU and the fact that Tara is in the same school district as University Terrace.
"Many of (the students) have children in school, and if they moved from University Terrace to Tara, their children don't have to change schools," Minor said. "That is an attractive feature."
Despite her confusion, Megan Yañez said she thinks the purchase is for the best.
"I was surprised, but overall I think it's a good thing because they needed to come up with some kind of housing for those people," Megan said. "They were almost discriminating against a whole group that would otherwise not have housing."
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