Editorial : SU needs more dorms rather than luxury apartments

Housing freshmen and sophomores, who are bound to a two-year housing agreement, in the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel and Conference Center and Parkview Hotel is not a sustainable solution to the on-campus housing crunch.

Clearly, a long-term solution for overcrowding is needed. If that solution results in a new building, renovated spaces or buying existing properties, the inevitable expansion of university-owned housing should consist of standard dorm rooms and suites, rather than expensive on-campus apartments or singles.

The SU area already offers enough options for upperclassmen, free of their housing agreements. The number of private luxury apartments located right by campus is growing rapidly, with one on South Campus, one on Main Campus, another in the building process and one most recently proposed on East Genesee Street. University housing does not need an equivalent to these expensive options. The campus needs large rooms and suites suitable and reasonably priced for freshmen and sophomores, who must live in them.

Attracting upperclassmen back to residence halls — though perhaps financially desirable for SU — with nice apartments or singles suited for independent, unmonitored lifestyles would undermine the effort to provide enough space for growing freshman classes and sophomores. Future spaces should provide as many rooms as possible for the campus demographics that need them most, namely underclassmen.