NEW STUDENT HOUSING SHAPING UP

Kevin Tankersley walked through a framed-up building Thursday that will be a club house for the Cape Place apartments taking shape on an 11-acre site at Sprigg and Bertling.

Giving a guided tour to a reporter, he pointed out where the club house kitchen and the fitness center will be housed. Beyond the building's shell, he pointed to bare ground where a swimming pool will be built.

"It's very nice," said Tankersley, project superintendent for Apex Construction Services. The McMinnville, Tenn., firm is the general contractor on the $3.4 million project.

Place Collegiate Properties of Atlanta is building the housing complex. It plans to rent the units to Southeast Missouri State University students looking for off-campus housing.

The Atlanta firm operates several student housing complexes around the country, and is building more. Those under construction include ones to serve students at Murray State University and the University of Tennessee-Martin.

Cape Place is scheduled to open in August. Construction is about 40 percent complete, Tankersley said.

The complex will feature eight, three-story apartment buildings and a clubhouse. The complex will have 84 four-bedroom apartments and 12 two-bedroom units.

All of the apartments will come furnished, said Stephanie Denney, vice president for market development for Place Collegiate Properties. All the appliances will be provided, including a washer and dryer for each apartment.

.A bathroom will adjoin each bedroom. There will be a door to each bedroom/bathroom area, which the renter can lock for privacy.

In each unit, the bedroom/bathroom areas will connect to a central living room and kitchen.

Denney said each of the bedrooms will have a high-speed Internet connection, a full-sized bed, five-drawer dresser and a computer desk and chair.

Panic alarm buttons will be installed in each bedroom, foyer and living room. The alarm system will be monitored 24 hours a day, she said.

Some of the units already have been rented. "There is just such a high demand for housing," said Denney. "It is going fast."

The cost ranges from $300 a month rent for a bedroom/bathroom in a four-bedroom unit to $360 a month for a bedroom/bathroom in a two-bedroom unit. That doesn't include the cost of utilities.

Some 40 construction workers currently are working at the site.

Work began late last year, with the first concrete slab poured on Dec. 27.

Tankersley said a ground heater was used so the concrete-slab foundations for the buildings could be poured during the winter.

Without the heater, the construction project would have been delayed. "When it gets down below freezing, you can't pour concrete because it doesn't set up," he said.

A mild winter helped move the project along, said Tankersley.

Prefabricated materials and an assembly-line construction process have helped too.

Said Tankersley, "They go up pretty quick."