Belknap Hall at PSU (Photo Courtesy of Plymouth State University)
Plymouth State University (PSU) has some big plans to address the region’s housing demand by transforming campus buildings into workforce units and creating spaces for the burgeoning life sciences market in the Granite State.
The plan has three parts and the first two are intended to create more workforce housing and new homes for various university offices, says PSU President Donald Birx. The university, he explains, had trouble in recent years hiring people due to a lack of housing. “People can’t find homes because there aren’t any, and we’re trying to think ahead on this,” he says.
The Kelly House at PSU, formerly housing the university’s Human Resources Center before being consolidated with the University System of NH, has been completed. “[That] now houses the family of the PSU Provost,” Birx says, adding eight or nine other campus houses are currently being assessed. “One immediate option we’re looking at is relocating the University Police Department and health services into available space in Highland Hall,” he says. “This would free up two houses for the workforce and provide a better place to support these services.”
The second part of the plan would convert sections of Belknap Hall, currently a student dormitory, into apartments for workforce housing. Birx says this would increase the housing stock in Plymouth and add up to 25 to 30 affordable apartments. PSU is looking to fund the project with congressionally directed funding and has been in contact with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen “We’re looking at creating two- to three-room units to be used by new faculty and staff, as well as other new or existing residents as space is available.”
Birx says PSU’s residence halls and apartments are still full but that a demographic decline in college-age students will be occurring in the next few years. Repurposing buildings, he explains, “would be an ideal solution that also provides another revenue source,” as well as an efficient use of existing resources to save on energy costs.
The third part of the plan is to extend the state’s tech corridor along Interstate 93 and to create an industrial park at Tenney Mountain Resort, Birx says, adding that conversations with Tenney Mountain are still developing. “Plymouth is in a sweet spot and Tenney offers an excellent location to develop an industrial research park that would include housing and PSU programs mainly in the sciences, life sciences and tech,” Birx says.
Birx describes universities like PSU as “workforce pipelines” that are intertwined with various markets. “Ours is in the northern half of New Hampshire, which is an entirely different area than the southern part of the state. We’re full of small businesses often struggling to recreate themselves and they don’t have the resources to compete,” he says, explaining that finding affordable housing for staff needs to happen first. For more information about Plymouth State University, visit plymouth.edu.
