Data Dive: The Rise of Off-Campus Student Housing in Midtown
Vertical neighborhoods for students have risen all over Midtown, with more on the way.
11/13/24
The category didn't really exist in the district ten years ago. But today, vertical neighborhoods for students attending Georgia Tech, SCAD Atlanta, Emory University, Georgia State and other area schools have risen all over Midtown, with more on the way.
We crunched the numbers on student population in the Midtown Improvement District and market demand for student apartment communities. Here's what we found:
The presence of college students in Midtown has steadily grown with expansion - both in terms of academic programs and residential options - happening within and near the major intown schools. Today, college students account for roughly 7,500 of the total 26,000 residents in the district. It's a solid business case for companies looking to attract young talent to set up shop in Midtown and increase visibility, and for residential developers to build more projects to house students.
Tracking the Surge in New Housing for Students
The first developments solely focused on student living appeared in Midtown in the area near Tech Square around 2015. And with the exception of a couple of quiet years, at least one new student residential project has opened its doors each year in Midtown since 2018. The most recent project to come online? Toll Brothers' Kinetic tower on Spring Street near 10th. The next one that will open sometime next year? LV Ventures' Rambler Atlanta on Peachtree Street near 4th.
And following these, two more proposed towers have cleared the development review process in recent months, including one on Cypress Street.
In all, the district is on pace to host some 10K student beds across more than a dozen student apartment projects. All inside a square mile of the city.
Midtown's Overall Population Rises and Falls with the Academic Year
Midtown Alliance peeks in at activity on the ground every quarter to study how many people spend time in the district on a given day. Sourcing anonymized GPS data from smartphones helps create a picture of how many people are here and when. And this graph shows a pattern of residential activity in Midtown that moves in sync with the academic calendar for Georgia Tech:
Notice how the residential population in Midtown declines over the summer and rebounds in the fall when students head back to class.
The Takeaways:
College students are a growing consumer segment in Midtown, where they get to straddle the line between campus and city life. Proximity to class means many of them do not need a car to get around, opting instead for bikes, e-scooters and transit. The competitive landscape for attracting students to sign leases at these residential towers in Midtown will continue to be intense. When school is in session, Midtown retailers and benefit. And those retailers located further from Tech Square can begin to capture more market share by offering student discounts and approaching property managers at student apartment buildings with special offers for new move-ins.
