By Pat Hammert/Staff Writer

Officials at Redlands Community College can seek financing in earnest now that the Canadian County Home Finance Authority has agreed to serve as conduit for an $8 million apartment complex on campus.

Serving as trustees of CCHFA, county commissioners signed a resolution on Monday stating the county would support the financing so that the bonds issued for the project can be tax-exempt.

Bond attorney J. Brent Clark of Norman-based Floyd Law Firm said the college foundation will actually own and build the complex with the college maintaining it.

“When it’s paid off, then it is owned by the college,” Clark said. He said he recently completed a similar campus project at Panhandle State, using the same method of financing. The project is arranged so that the debt is paid off through student fees and rental payments.

RCC president Larry Devane has been planning the project since 2001. Design plans are complete. The project calls for apartment-style living for college students. Officials say that type of accommodations is preferred nowadays rather than student dormitories.

Proposed are four two-story units with a clubhouse that surround a quadrangle. The units feature two-bedroom and four-bedroom apartments to house 160 students. Estimated cost of construction is between $7 million and $8 million.

The proposed site is just north of the main campus, near the Gemini Center, on land owned by Redlands Community College Foundation Inc.

Once completed, Redlands would be the only community college in the metro area and one of the few in the rural area that would be able to provide housing. Housing availability is one of the top three questions recruiters hear from students.

“It is very difficult to get quality athletes, for instance, if you don’t have a place for them to live,” Clark said. Clark said other development follows much like on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma. Clark said UCO built campus apartments and a fitness center soon followed and then improvements to the stadium. As well, safety and security is built into the design, he said.

School officials are hoping to begin construction so that the facility can be open to college students by fall 2006.

Clark said financing negotiations are under way with Kansas City, Mo.-based investment group, George K. Baum and Co.

Devane said finding financing for the project “has been a tedious process.” He said a history of success is needed for investors to be interested. “But we have no history in housing,” he said.

Unlike other state schools that complete capital projects through the backing of a major foundation with un-restricted funds available, Redlands Community College Foundation has only dealt in providing student scholarships and not campus construction, he said.

The CCHFA will meet on Dec. 5, at which time a report will be made on the final bond financing. Clark said officials hope to close on the project by the end of the year with construction to be far enough along so that at least some of the apartments can be leased by the start of fall enrollment 2006.

RCC representative Randle Lee told commissioners students housed on campus frees up apartments in El Reno that studies show are inadequate in numbers.

“Students have eaten up most of the private occupancy,” he said.