Puget Sound Christian finds a freshman dorm

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, September 17, 2006

EVERETT – Even as local leaders try to persuade the state to place a four-year state university in the city, the often-overlooked four-year college already here is quietly expanding its presence.

Puget Sound Christian College recently opened nine student apartments to house its three dozen freshman. It has a new student activity center as well.

The private, Bible-based college has operated since the 1950s. In 2004, it moved from a Mountlake Terrace campus into leased space in downtown Everett.

With about 178 students, the private religiously-oriented college doesn’t occupy big brick academic buildings. The main campus is housed in a building along Wetmore Avenue, just north of downtown’s heart. Other facilities are in spaces scattered around nearby blocks.

Freshmen are required to live in college-controlled housing, which has been spread out around Everett’s central blocks in previous years. Last year, before the Nautica apartment complex was converted into condominiums, freshmen lived in several apartments there.

That wasn’t ideal for a number of reasons, said Randy Bridges, Puget Sound Christian’s dean of students. The apartments on the northwest corner of Hewitt and Rucker avenues, on the other hand, put the freshman in a more dormlike setting.

“We’re really pleased to have a community of students here,” he said.

Virginia Thompson, a senior who’s acting as the resident adviser for the student apartments, echoed that thought.

“It builds a better community, like a family,” she said. There’s also another advantage: “(The students) can’t sneak out because we can see and hear them.”

Known as the Hart Apartments, the student units take up the second floor of a 93-year-old building that houses Mekong, Bargain CDs and a few other small shops. Coast Equity Partners, the investment arm of Everett’s Coast Real Estate Services, bought the property last month for $2 million.

Tom Hoban of Coast Real Estate said he sees the corner property as a key location. The city’s downtown plan envisions significant redevelopment along that stretch of Rucker Avenue.

While Coast Equity could potentially realize more income from the apartments by converting them into more upscale units, Hoban said he’s happy to provide housing for the college, which has leased the building’s entire second floor and is managing the units.

“We – our business and our family – care about a values-based higher education solution. This is one that’s already here,” said Hoban, an alum of Notre Dame. “It was one of those rare situations where our personal interests and business combined.”

Students began moving in on Labor Day weekend. Freshman Kandi Hutchinson of Tacoma said the dorm-like setup is fun, and she’s finding downtown living to be OK.

“We don’t hear a lot of noise, and we can walk to pretty much everything,” she said.

Conveniently, the college recently set up a student activity center in space it owns at 1302 Hewitt Ave., across the street from the new student apartments. Eventually, the college hopes to build a full-sized athletic center and student hub in that area.

Hoban said he thinks the presence of college students is a nice addition to the growing residential mix in downtown Everett. He said the shops on the first floor of his new building have “responded well” to the new neighbors upstairs.

It also might help the city’s argument that it can support a new university if a private college takes root and does well in Everett, Hoban said.

“It shows a small, private college can thrive here in an urban setting, so why can’t a public university?” he said.

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.