“In the next couple of months, you’ll see us doing what we consider horizontal improvements, we’ll be installing piping and pouring foundations, getting the utilities set,” King said Monday. “It’s going to be a full-scale construction process from now until the operating company takes over to get things fluffed and ready to serve the students.”
The company, which named the new complex Monarch 815 to match the format of its other student housing properties, is already taking leases now through its website, monarch815.com, and expect to open a physical leasing office next week in the Earth Fare shopping center on West State of Franklin Road.
Billed as luxury student housing, Monarch 815 will provide services and amenities that may seem better suited at major hotels, including a large clubhouse, a resort-style pool, outdoor fire pit areas, exercise facilities, tanning beds and activities programming.
Rent for the two- and four-bedroom units will start at $575, which includes utilities and furnishing.
For the last two months, demolition crews have toiled to bring down or modify the 11 buildings and the thousands of cubic square feet of concrete left behind by Mullican Flooring when the manufacturer moved to a new facility on Woodlyn Road.
The developer will appear at a city Board of Zoning Appeals meeting Dec. 10 seeking approval of changes to the site plans, removing some parking spaces and adding landscaping.
With the deletion of the underground parking structure, King said the development will still have a parking space for every student tenant.
In preparation for the new residential use, the 11-acre heavy industrial property (I-2) and the surrounding medium density residential (R-3) was rezoned as high density residential-university (R-6), which allows for 25 living units per acre.
Monarch owns and operates similar facilities in Conway, S.C., and Statesboro, Ga., and is in the process of developing others in Charlotte and Cullowhee, N.C., and Columbia, S.C.