Campus Evolution Aims to Go Beyond

NEW YORK CITY-When Andrew Stark helped launch American Campus Communities, now the largest student housing REIT, in the late 1990s, the sector was “highly fragmented.” Today, as CEO of Campus Evolution Villages, a management company he launched in June 2012 with Evan Danner, Stark would describe student housing in much the same way.

“You have three publicly traded companies in student housing; the three publicly traded companies and the next seven largest independents combined control less than 7% of the beds in the market,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “This is the definition of a fragmented sector.”

It's also one that's “highly management-intensive,” as he puts it. “I like to say it's an amalgamation of hospitality and multifamily, because it feels and looks like multifamily, but you're really offering services to students, and your staff has to be able to relate to students.”

While Stark and Danner were still at Cantor Fitzgerald, they saw an opportunity to establish a presence in student housing. “The first thing we said was, we want to control our destiny,” Stark says. “We don't want to hire third parties to manage our properties.”

The cofounders brought the management aspect in-house after founding Campus Evolution, acquiring United Campus Management Group, which specialized in the sector. They then bought a quarter of student housing properties in the South for $46.5 million, and this month are scheduled to close on four more, bringing New York City-based Campus Evolution's total portfolio to 15 assets coast to coast. Along the way, Campus Evolution has benefited from financing provided by Toronto's Reichmann family, which once controlled Olympia & York.

The company's offerings go beyond the creature comforts which have become a mainstay of student housing in many markets. “We have a philosophy that we're building the first campus-centric brand in the country,” says Stark. “We're expanding the experience by offering more to our students and parents.”

To borrow a favorite phrase of Stark's, Campus Evolution's properties are intended to go beyond a place to put heads and beds. “We look at it as a way to manage to a different level,” he says. “I'm not saying we're offering concierge-type services, but we're not just the place where you drop off your check. There's a lot more involvement with our staff.”

One point of differentiation is the ancillary businesses that are part of the equation. “We have a company called Company X, which invests in entrepreneurial businesses,” says Stark. “We have incubators that we're setting up at our properties as well as at our offices in Manhattan. We also have a company known as ArtBattlesU, which promotes the arts and entertainment, where we take young, aspiring artists and put them into a cool, exciting venue.”

The first such live arts competition sponsored by ArtBattlesU took place this past April at Webster Hall, a Midtown South venue that's better known for presenting live music. “We thought we'd have a couple hundred kids come out, and we had 900 students show up for that,” says Stark.

“We've grasped the fact that today, there's a trillion dollars of student debt and a lot of kids are looking for jobs,” Sark explains. “How can we go beyond, and how can he help them? That's part of our mission and part of what we do. And it all comes back to increasing the value of our real estate, because we offer something different. So the core is, how do we drive the value of the real estate while doing something that's needed and wanted: beautiful product and delivery for our students and parents.”