Washington State University Tri-Cities in north Richland was originally a commuter campus.

But in recent years, it’s become a destination.

Of the 1,868 students enrolled at WSU Tri-Cities, many are coming from out of state.

“This is not a commuter school anymore,” said Jeffrey Dennison, WSU Tri-Cities director of marketing and communications. “We’re growing out of that, we’re finding, because of our unique offerings, such as the Hanford lab and viticulture. While there are students from Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties, now the school has students from Hawaii, New York, Maryland and Texas, for example. They’re coming for specific reasons.”

In recent years, WSU Tri-Cities has been able to have students stay at the nearby Guest House at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, or at The Timbers apartment complex. But the obvious next step for the school was on-campus housing.

“I think it’s been a long-term aspiration to have on-campus student housing,” Dennison said.

Pullman developer hired

In July, WSU Tri-Cities signed a 15-acre land lease agreement with Corporate Pointe Developers LLC of Pullman to build a 713-bed student housing complex at the north end of the Richland campus.

“It has been a two-year journey pursuing a housing solution for WSU Tri-Cities,” said WSU Tri-Cities Chancellor Keith Moo-Young at the time of the signing. “We are excited about the opportunities for the WSU Tri-Cities campus to draw students from outside the region and to provide a comprehensive campus feel.”

The project will be broken down into seven phases and will cost $65 million.

The first phase will include 165 beds and could be ready to go by next August when the fall semester begins for WSU.

It’s taken two tries to get a working agreement.

In November 2014, the Port of Benton issued a request for proposals for using port land that attracted one interested party. But the parties couldn’t come to terms, and WSU Tri-Cities re-opened the bidding process last fall.

This time, there were three bids, with Corporate Pointe Developers LLC coming out on top.

The complex will be owned, operated and maintained by Corporate Pointe Developers.

“It’s a unique situation,” Dennison said. “We own the land, but we’re going to option as a lease-land option.”

Residences to be north of campus

The ceremonial ground-breaking was Oct. 12.

But K. Duane Brelsford, president and managing member of Corporate Pointe, said his company isn’t quite ready to begin the actual building.

“Our goal is to be in there the next 30 to 60 days,” he said. “We’re finishing up the drawings right now.”

But it won’t take the company long to get up to speed.

“We’re primarily involved in student housing,” Brelsford said. “We have over 2,000 units in Pullman. So we’re very familiar with this type of project.”

Tentatively called The Vineyard on Campus, the project is going to be privately financed and cost between $8 million and $9 million per each of the seven phases.

“The hope is to get it done on time, and doing that means getting it done on budget, the design done and approved, and having some good weather this winter,” Brelsford said.

The layouts will be similar to Pullman campus housing, he said. “But it looks different. We’re trying to blend in a Southwest flavor to it,” he said.

Each unit will have its own kitchen, and the complex will include a clubhouse, outdoor pool, basketball court and recreational facilities.

When the entire project is completed will depend on the success of the earlier phases.

“It’ll be based on occupancy,” Brelsford said. “We’ll try to move up to the next phase when we get to 90 percent occupancy. If Phase 1 is under 90 percent, we’ll watch the market and see what it does.”

Officials expect students will like the location, north of the campus buildings.

“It’s on WSU land, but you don’t want it to be too close to the classes, giving the students some privacy,” Brelsford said. “But still it needs to be close enough to walk to class.”