Northeastern purchased the East Village residence hall in June from Phoenix Property Co. for $169 million, ending the university’s 11-year lease of the property.
The acquisition of East Village, or EV, which opened for student use in 2015, grants Northeastern full ownership rights of the 17-story residence hall, according to the Boston Business Journal. Dallas-based real estate companies Phoenix Property Co. and Lincoln Property Co. developed the residence hall located at 291 Saint Botolph St. for $75 million during the summer of 2012, and leased it to Northeastern with the opportunity to purchase the space at a later date.
In 2012, the Phoenix Property Co. bought the section of the Huntington Avenue YMCA of Greater Boston’s building that faces Saint Botolph Street and partnered with Lincoln Property Co. to construct it.
The residence hall contains more than 700 beds and utilizes the top floor as an event space that can accommodate 300 people. Northeastern media relations did not respond to questions from The Huntington News, including how many beds EV accommodates and which residence halls house the most students on the Boston campus.
As the first residence hall in Boston built by private developers, the acquisition reflects Northeastern’s broader shift towards private housing partnerships to expand on-campus student housing.
In 2015, Northeastern partnered with American Campus Communities, or ACC, the nation’s largest developer of student housing, to construct LightView, a 20-story residence hall that accommodates 825 beds and a 9,500 square-foot community space. LightView is one of the residence halls built under Boston’s “Housing A Changing City: Boston 2030” initiative, which aims to create 18,500 new dorm beds citywide to liberate apartments currently rented by students. Other universities, including UMass Boston, Suffolk University and Wentworth Institute of Technology developed additional student housing under the initiative.
Now, construction is underway on a 23-story residence hall near International Village through another partnership with ACC. Projected to be finished in 2028, it is slated to house approximately 1,370 students. The university did not respond to questions asking if it will have the opportunity to buy LightView or 840 Columbus Ave.
