Cabrillo College governing board to vote Monday on developer, operator of joint housing project with UCSC

The Cabrillo College governing board is slated to vote Monday on an agreement with a developer for a proposed 624-bed joint housing project with UC Santa Cruz on Cabrillo’s Aptos campus. 

Cabrillo President Matt Wetstein said he’s excited about being at this point in the project’s process. 

“It feels great,” he said Friday. “Feels like we’re crossing one of the hurdles, and it’s been a really good process of vetting the firms that applied for the project.” 

After a review of proposals for the $181.7 million project from four different firms, an evaluation committee ranked Greystar as the highest-scoring firm and recommended it for the project. If approved, Greystar would work with several other firms on various aspects of the project, with Devcon Construction handling construction of the building and WRNS Studio as the architect.

College officials say housing and affordability are the primary challenges that Cabrillo College students face and that the project is much-needed to alleviate those pressures. In a 2021 housing feasibility study, 32% of the college’s students said they had experienced housing insecurity. The report also found a demand existed for 220 beds of single-student housing and 110 units of student family housing. 

Greystar is also the manager of Hilltop Apartments, University of California-owned apartments located on Santa Cruz’s Westside, where concerns by residents about high rental rates and pest control were recently brought to light in a Santa Cruz Local article. 

Wetstein said he doesn’t think residents at this project will face those kinds of concerns – especially related to rate increases. 

“The thing to remember about our project is that it’s a project that’s funded by state grant dollars that have conditions – those conditions apply to rent. So we have to charge a rent at 30% of 50% [area median income], so the rents are automatically affordable,” he said. “Those rent increases won’t be an issue at all.” 

The cost for a bed at the proposed housing project in 2024 is projected to be about $1,046 a month.

Cabrillo College also received proposals from Balfour Beatty, Servitas LLC and The Michaels Organization. 

Westein said the design that Greystar proposed is “really outstanding.” 

“We were impressed with the way that they oriented a lot of the units towards an ocean view,” he said. “And for students who didn’t have an ocean view, they were very thoughtful about creating spaces – there’s a rooftop garden and there’s a couple of sky study lounges, that are glassed in that have beautiful views as well.” 

The project will have about 376 beds for Cabrillo students and 248 beds for UCSC students.

Wetstein said the request to the board for Monday is to approve Greystar as the selected vendor and to allow Wetstein and his staff to negotiate the development agreement. If approved, the agreement with Greystar and the associated firms such as Devcon Construction would then go before the board for a vote at a future meeting. 

The project is entirely funded through bonds. Of the total, $111 million will be paid for by annual payments of $8.12 million a year for 30 years from the state. That money will go to the UC budget, which will be transferred to a nonprofit entity, Collegiate Housing Foundation, which will be issuing those bonds. 

UCSC will cover the remaining $70 million, which will be funded through additional sold bonds and will be paid off by the rent revenue coming in, according to Wetstein. 

Wetstein said once the bonds are sold, the total project cost could go up to $187 million to $200 million, but it’s not certain yet. 

“The reason I’m hedging on that is really all on the unknown interest rate that we’ll get when we go to market,” he said. “That timing is going to depend upon when the construction drawings are done and when we’re issued a permit to build.” 

Construction is scheduled to start in September 2025. 

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