The board of trustees at National Park College will hold a special meeting Thursday to change course on financing its on-campus housing.
The board, in November 2018, approved resolutions to enter into contract negotiations for residence halls and food services. At that time, Servitas was selected to build and operate a three-story residence hall following a comprehensive feasibility study the vendor completed.
While Servitas will continue to manage the contract, NPC President John Hogan said the college is looking at financing the project itself.
"It's beneficial to students," he said. "It provides more revenue opportunities for the college, helps us keep the rent low for students. Our bond counsel and our underwriters have been working with sharp pencils to try to get us the best deal so it's simply a matter of getting our board to approve what they've proposed.
"We're still using Servitas. It's just a change in financing, not the contractor. This helps us keep a shorter term so we would reduce the term from 33 or 35 years to 30 years and we'll save millions in interest over the life of the loan using the college's bonding authority. It's really an offer that's too good to pass up in terms of those benefits and, of course, the students will benefit from that lower rent."
The feasibility study estimated a need for 237 beds and Servitas is recommending the college start with a 52,000-square-foot facility housing 180 beds. Hogan said with a new financing option, the hope is that the college will be able to expand with student demand.
The board has to approve the new method of financing, he said.
"The reason this is such a significant initiative is we're trying to retain our talent in Garland County," he said. "If we don't offer them all the amenities that other higher education institutions can offer, we're going to lose more of our talent to other communities. This is another way that we feel like we can contribute to the economic development and quality of life of the county.
"The reason to target them is we don't want them to move away. We also want to bring more students in to our community."
Steve Trusty, vice president for finance and administration, said the goal is still to open the hall by August 2020. He and Hogan agreed this will mark a cultural change for NPC, which has long been a commuter college.
"We're responding to what our students are asking us to offer," Hogan said. "What they see in their college -- and NPC is their college -- we asked them 'what can we do better?' They talked about food so, we've got the new food partnership. The student commons was really put together based on input and focus groups, and what we heard from students. The four-year degree relationship with SAU is really just to meet the needs that our students say 'you could be better if you provide this.' Same for student housing.
"We're governed as a community college is governed and, I think, that's a good thing because that requires us to be responsive and listen to what our community and what our students want us to become."
Community and students' needs have driven the way NPC has built its academic programs, its strategy for recruiting faculty, and how it continuously improves student experiences.
"That's what athletics is all about, too," he said. "It helps us to link with those students who ... might not otherwise go to college. It isn't because we necessarily love baseball or love basketball so much, although we do. It helps us to offer more and that's what our students said -- 'we want you to offer more.'
"Whatever the next thing is, we'll do what we've always done and accept the leadership of our students as we've done with these things."
By adding student housing, Hogan said the college is prepared to hear from students how they would have previously been unable to attend college without this offering. The original plan for the project was not to incur any upfront liability to the college.
"We originally pursued the public-private partnership and it just wasn't going to work for us on a project this size so, for all the reasons Dr. Hogan talked about it just made more financial sense for us to finance the project directly," Trusty said.
Local on 06/05/2019