PROVO, Utah — Could a rundown building just across the street from BYU’s campus soon turn into a revamped apartment complex that brings much-needed student housing?
Developers have brought that sort of a plan to Provo City for the Park Plaza apartments, which locals say has sat dormant for years.
“If you live right around campus, it’s definitely kind of an eyesore,” said BYU Junior Glynn Beatty.
Beatty claims navigating the student housing market in Provo isn’t so simple.
“It’s pretty competitive," Beatty said. “Not a lot of spots — especially close to campus.”
Beatty is in his third year studying civil engineering, so the dilapidated apartments he often walks or bikes by seem like a missed opportunity.
“I get kind of nerdy about stuff like this — I want to be a city planner,” he said. “Every time I’ve passed it, I always kind of thought, ‘Man, it’d be nice if this was open.’”
"There's 2,000 more students here than five years ago, and there have not been a lot of new projects that can house more students," explained Walker Wood, who represented Cole West in a recent Provo City Planning Commission meeting.
The vision is a new 157-unit complex about three times the size of the current building and can house roughly 500 students. But concerns were brought up in the meeting, with many involving parking.
“Every student has a car now, and it’s a problem,” said Jennifer England, who lives nearby.
The developers want to see a ratio of half a parking space per bedroom, or about 240 parking spots. Nearby neighbors and students worry that means more cars cramming onto their streets.
Others, like Beatty, see it as a potential solution.
“The parking lot situation at BYU is also pretty atrocious,” Beatty said. “So to have housing pretty close means that less people will need to drive to school, and that will help with that.”
The planning commission voted narrowly to deny the proposal as it stands.
"I feel like we already have an issue,” said commission member Melissa Kendall. “It's going to be an issue. I think we need to not give the parking reduction, and they need to solve this problem."
But the proposal to revive this neglected part of town still moves on to Provo’s city council, although a date has not yet been set.
FOX 13 News reached out to the developers and the city for further comment, but neither group has responded.