An apartment complex designed to set a new standard for student housing in La Crosse is only about halfway through the construction process and already leasing for June 2016.
Three Sixty Real Estate Solutions’ Aguilera apartments on the corner of Badger and 13th streets held an open house Saturday to share its vision of student housing.
“We’re really trying to create an environment that elevates the quality of student life when it comes to their housing,” said Three Sixty director of operations Jeremy Novak.
The $10 million project has been in the works since the real estate firm bought the property 12 years ago, and has been planned out since 2008. Construction started with the demolition and removal of houses last June and is scheduled to be complete this fall, with renters moving in June 15, 2016. Three Sixty plans to move its offices into the first floor of the building in April 2016.
With five floors, a garden patio and fitness room, it’s a sizable investment, but one the company is willing to make.
“Our sign is on the building, so it’s a direct reflection of who we are as an organization and what we want to be doing as far as raising the quality of housing near campus,” Novak said.
The apartments range from 920 square feet to 1,294 square feet and overlook the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse or downtown La Crosse.
“You’re waking up and you going to have really nice views anywhere in the building,” Novak said.
The building’s main draw will be a patio in the center of the second floor with seating and a garden.
“You’re going to see green space; you’re not just going to see roof and tar and asphalt. It’s going to look nice,” Novak said.
Novak has plans for the patio, including coming up with a way to make it usable year-round.
“We think it’d be nice to come sit out here in November or December when it may be 20 degrees outside, but it’d still be 60 degrees in here,” Novak said.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse students Nick Bauman, Jamie Reif and Robert Sepulveda were pretty impressed when they took Novak’s tour.
They especially liked the washer and dryer combinations inside each apartment and the communal patio, meant to build a sense of community inside the building.
“It’s not, like, required that you go, but you could meet your neighbors,” Reif said. “It’d be nice to at least know what their names are.”
It was a huge improvement over the previous housing, according to Reif, who once knew a woman who lived in the now-demolished building.
“The floor was so uneven. I wouldn’t want to live there,” Reif said.
If Novak was trying to elevate the standard of living for students, he definitely succeeded, the students agreed.
“I think they set the bar pretty high,” Bauman said.
They appreciated that Three Sixty invested in giving students a nice place to live.
“It’s nice to see that it’s not just another rectangle, cheaply built,” Sepulveda said.
Bedrooms in the apartment building will go for an average of $495 a month, depending on the size and which floor they are located on. The building houses 54 three-bedroom units and four two-bedroom apartments.
“Right now we don’t have any two bedroom apartments; they’ve all been rented out already,” Novak said.
Tenants will be also able to rent dedicated parking spaces in a climate-controlled, enclosed parking lot on the ground level for $75 a month or a surface parking lot spot for $35.
For more information, visit threesixty.bz.
