BOSTON—Boston Real Estate Times, New England’s leading digital daily news channel with over 13,000 subscribers, announced that it will host its annual Academic Facilities and Student Housing Summit on March 24—virtually this year.
“We are very excited to bring our panel of experts to you at this virtual event! They will bring their years of experience and knowledge to the table as they discuss some of the most pressing issues facing the industry, but also the question that is at the forefront of everyone’s minds: How does 2021 and beyond look for academic facilities and student housing, in a recovering, post-COVID-19 world,” said Upendra Mishra, publisher of Boston Real Estate Times and its sister publication Life Sciences Times. “We’ve lined up a great panel of speakers from the academic facilities industry. Stay tuned for speakers’ announcement.”
To register for virtual zoom summit, please click here.
This is what you will learn at the summit:
- Inadequate Campus Capacity: To provide beds that meet social-distancing or quarantine safety standards, schools situated in urban areas have created temporary single bedrooms by renting rooms in nearby empty hotels. But as vaccinations continue, the hospitality industry will experience increased demand, making these rented beds no longer available. On-campus capacity will be inadequate to house all students in what would be ‘the new normal’.
- Returning Student Body: Students that did take virtual classes during quarantine closures will want to return to campus- what type of facilities and real estate will be needed to meet the changing demand?
- The Time to Start Is Now: New student resident halls take between two and three years from planning to occupancy, so the best time for institutions to begin evaluating their decisions and their available alternatives is today.
- Budgetary Constraints: Well-endowed institutions have the financial footing to either pay for or loan against a new residence hall, or to raise the needed amount of funds to support the new infrastructure. But how will schools with less secure financial footing afford it? How will institutions pay for these urgently needed student housing COVID-19 safety changes?
- Accounting for Future Students’ Needs: As the priorities of subsequent generations change, the future of student housing should adjust accordingly: the preferred living arrangements of students include security, equity in ethnic diversity and gender, a balance between private spaces that foster independence and larger spaces that encourage social mixing and bonding, and sustainability in the face of a changing climate.
- Balancing Students’ Needs Against Budgetary Necessity: Administrations have to balance the desired student experience with the very real limitations of budgets and schedules, both of which must be optimized to fit within project constraints.
- Goodbye, Roommates: Necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis, single rooms are becoming the rule. Suites with contained bathrooms and kitchens provide the highest degree of safety from the hazards of group toilets and dining, where social distancing is not always possible.
Here the schedule of the academic real estate summit:
Date: March 24, 2021
Time: 9:30 am to 11:00 am
Venue: Zoom (links will emailed to you after you register.)
