Marquette buying The Marq (The 2040)

[warriorchick]

For those of you who haven't been on campus in the current century, The Marq is the old Bockl building on 20th and Wisconsin that was converted to upscale apartments,  and was called The 2040 before its relatively recent rebranding.

It will double the amount of University-owned housing for upperclassmen.

https://today.marquette.edu/2017/10/marquette-to-partner-with-investment-manager-harrison-street-to-take-on-ownership-of-the-marq-rooms-available-for-fall-2018/


Here is their website:

http://www.livethemarq.com/

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Marquette will offer The Marq as a campus apartment option to juniors, seniors, graduate and professional students for the 2018-19 academic year.

This must be a college trend.  Locally, Yale is building new housing for graduate and professional students.
I like the location for The Marq!

[warriorchick]

Marquette will offer The Marq as a campus apartment option to juniors, seniors, graduate and professional students for the 2018-19 academic year.

This must be a college trend.  Locally, Yale is building new housing for graduate and professional students.
I like the location for The Marq!

My guess is that Marquette will be done buying apartment buildings after this one. I think they have more than met the demand for university - owned upperclassman housing at this point. This building has gone through a couple of management changes in the past few years, and resorted to some pretty unconventional ways to rent units, including putting deadbolts on the bedrooms of 3-bedroom apartments and renting them to 3 random people. They also tried marketing to UWM students and running  a shuttle bus to their campus.  I wouldn't be surprised if this place was having trouble making their nut and Marquette gave them an offer they couldn't refuse.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

My guess is that Marquette will be done buying apartment buildings after this one. I think they have more than met the demand for university - owned upperclassman housing at this point. This building has gone through a couple of management changes in the past few years, and resorted to some pretty unconventional ways to rent units, including putting deadbolts on the bedrooms of 3-bedroom apartments and renting them to 3 random people. They also tried marketing to UWM students and running  a shuttle bus to their campus.  I wouldn't be surprised if this place was having trouble making their nut and Marquette gave them an offer they couldn't refuse.

Wouldn't surprise me. Between the Ivy and 2040s, they were wayyy too overpriced to be a reasonable option for students.

Marquette is gonna have the same issues unless they drop the cost.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

These are now the nicest housing facilities Marquette owns. New home for athletes?

[warriorchick]

These are now the nicest housing facilities Marquette owns. New home for athletes?

You know it.   

[warriorchick]

Wouldn't surprise me. Between the Ivy and 2040s, they were wayyy too overpriced to be a reasonable option for students.

Marquette is gonna have the same issues unless they drop the cost.

Previously, this property was nothing but an investment to its owners.  It got traded around like it was a Pokemon card.

In the past, I have worked for multifamily property management companies and investors. For this kind of property, the investors only care about how high they can get its value so they can flip it.  One of the biggest factors in the value is the total of the rent roll - the dollar value of the leases in place.  Therefore, their aim was to get tenants to sign as high a dollar value of the lease as possible. They would rather  be 90%  full with an average monthly lease rate of $1,000 than 100% full with an average lease rate of $950.  In this case, it looks like that strategy failed.

Marquette doesn't need to play that game. My guess is that it will either get rid of or phase out some of the more expensive perks and try to get the cost down to where it is more comparable to their other apartments.

As an aside, awhile back I interviewed with the company that managed this building at the time.  They specialized in luxury student housing.  At one point I was describing my own college apartment experience and said, "I think living in a hovel while you are a college student can be character-building".  Surprisingly, I did not get the job.

[chapman]

They still have a couple of eating places here?  I remember a pizza place, and breakfast-style place.  Also had a nice little lounge.  And parking.  Was out of my price range (er, my parents tolerance range) at the time, but had some friends who lived there.  Could go over well if MU can fill it up and give a bit of a price break to students.

[jsglow]

What you guys need to remember is that Marquette probably got this for a very reasonable price.  Ownership of this building changed hands at least a couple of times.  Moreover, despite what the MU announcement claimed, I had never heard Marquette emphasize expanding university owned upperclassman housing as an important strategic objective.  Quite the contrary, they were very happy when outside investors built the Ivy, for example.  All that tells me that they saw a unique opportunity and smartly took advantage.

[MU82]

I like the location for The Marq!

Yep, it's very good. I lived on 20th and Clybourn my junior year and it was pretty convenient.

Nice place, too. My roommate and I split the $210 monthly rent!

[🏀]

Lived there two years, it was nice. Walls were a bit thin.

[Stronghold]

They still have a couple of eating places here?  I remember a pizza place, and breakfast-style place.  Also had a nice little lounge.  And parking.  Was out of my price range (er, my parents tolerance range) at the time, but had some friends who lived there.  Could go over well if MU can fill it up and give a bit of a price break to students.

Sal's Pizza is still there.  The other place you were thinking of is The Broken Yolk which has moved to Wells St. between 16th and 17th.  Not sure what took over their location.

[Goose]

Warriorchick

My daughter lived there for two years and I believe it fully occupied, or awfully close, both years. There were a lot of international students living there, and from my perspective, it was not cheap. While I did not love the location, the building and apartment were quite nice.

[LloydsLegs]

Marquette will offer The Marq as a campus apartment option to juniors, seniors, graduate and professional students for the 2018-19 academic year.

This must be a college trend.  Locally, Yale is building new housing for graduate and professional students.
I like the location for The Marq!

Agreed.  Nova new dorms for seniors coming on line next year.

[warriorchick]

Warriorchick

My daughter lived there for two years and I believe it fully occupied, or awfully close, both years. There were a lot of international students living there, and from my perspective, it was not cheap. While I did not love the location, the building and apartment were quite nice.

All I am saying is that if their building was always full, they sure wasted a crapload of money on marketing. I am sure that the Ivy and the fancy greek houses  that have been built in the last few years took a big chunk of their business.  What they spent on a per-unit basis was a multiple of what any other building around Marquette did. And in the apartment biz, a 5 percent swing in occupancy can be the difference between comfortably cash flowing and disaster, especially if you've got the mortgage maxed out and the market doesn't go where you hoped it would.

[#UnleashSean]

Is this one of those fully furnished college living pads? The idea of them is great (as well as each person having their own lease) but the execution in any of them I've ever set foot in is terrible. Bad maintenance, cheapest set of ikea they can get, off brand "4k" tv's (LOL), the amenities have also been cheap and poorly ran. All this with a very expensive monthly price.

I wish one of these would take off and actually be nice, that would be great.

[warriorchick]

Is this one of those fully furnished college living pads? The idea of them is great (as well as each person having their own lease) but the execution in any of them I've ever set foot in is terrible. Bad maintenance, cheapest set of ikea they can get, off brand "4k" tv's (LOL), the amenities have also been cheap and poorly ran. All this with a very expensive monthly price.

I wish one of these would take off and actually be nice, that would be great.

You would have to be an idiot to put nice stuff in an apartment you are marketing to college students, even if it is supposed to be upscale.

Just because the parents can afford the rent doesn't mean their kids will take better care of your property.  Often it's the opposite.