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CEDAR CITY — The Utah State Board of Regents on Friday authorized Snow College to participate in a public-private partnership to develop 100 units of student housing on its Richfield campus.
Craig Mathie, Snow College's vice president of student success, told the regents that enrollment at the Richfield campus has "plateaued" because it is dependent on commuter students.
Mathie said the campus is coming up on the 20th anniversary of the Utah Legislature merging the former Sevier Valley Applied Technology Center in Richfield with Snow College. The Richfield campus primarily offers applied technology programs while its residential campus in Ephraim offers a wide array of associate degree programs and a limited number of bachelor degree programs.
"In that time we hoped the community would step up and provide some type of student-friendly housing, but it hasn't happened," Mathie told the board, meeting at Southern Utah University.
The housing will be developed on college property. The campus is landlocked by I-70, Richfield High School and well-established residential neighborhoods to the north and south, he said.
Under the agreement, a private developer will build and maintain the housing units and parking lots. Snow College will lease the land to the developer at low cost and provide lease payments to the winning bidder from housing fees paid by students. The facility would become college property at the end of the 40-year agreement.
Now that the arrangement has been approved by the Utah State Board of Regents, Snow College will move forward with seeking requests for proposals, Mathie said.
