SUNDAY EDITION | Thousands more high-end apartments planned near University of Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Just on the other side of Interstate 65 from the University of Louisville campus, a block that once contained an aging apartment building and unkempt rental houses is now the latest example of the student-housing arms race at U of L.

The Clubhouse includes three five-story buildings where, starting this fall, up to 758 U of L students will rent furnished apartments that come with walk-in closets, granite countertops and amenities like a courtyard pool, movie theater and hammock lounge.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of U of L's main Belknap campus, a new development called the Retreat is meant to bring suburban comforts with 157 detached cottages shared by two to six students apiece amid luxury perks like a sauna, golf simulator and cabanas beside a resort-style pool.

As U of L continues its decade-long transformation into a residential campus, private real estate developers are gobbling up land near the school and betting millions that students (and their parents) will pay $600 to $950 a month, each, to live in suites where no one has to share a bedroom or bathroom.

The Grove, a 654-unit complex on S. 4th Street, literally could not be built fast enough last year, as students moved in amid construction and ended up getting their first month's rent for free.

In the last five years, four big apartment complexes have been built on the edge of campus with about 2,700 beds among them.

Another four complexes with about 2,400 more beds are under construction or in the planning stages.

Investors in these projects are big, sophisticated companies that specialize in student housing such as Austin-based American Campus Communities and Charlotte's Campus Crest Communities.

U of L officials view the building boom as validation of their work over the last decade to shed the campus' commuter past by adding dining halls, late-night hours at libraries and athletic venues.

We have changed the face of this campus, said U of L housing director Shannon Staten.

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SUNDAY EDITION | Thousands more high-end apartments planned near University of Louisville