Alumni: School ties entice home buyers JANET FRANKSTON The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 05/16/04 Shortly after college students become alumni, their mailboxes start to overflow. Give to the annual fund-raising campaign. Sign up for a credit card with the university logo. Attend the reunion. And now: Live among fellow alumni. Private developers building university-themed subdivisions are appealing to alumni looking to reconnect to the glory days of college or to be close to the intellectual stimulation of courses and lectures. Some are geared to aging baby boomers or retirees and have age restrictions. Golfing communities aimed at graduates of Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia are under construction, as is a condo project near UGA's Sanford Stadium in Athens. These projects have created alliances with alumni or athletic associations by promising cash and a small percentages of sales. At the Georgia Tech Club, selling houses with a college connection doesn't seem like hard work to Michael Hickman. A fourth-generation Tech alumnus, part of his pitch sometimes involves recalling the Heisman Trophy that got away in the early 1940s and the 1976 football game in which Tech beat Notre Dame without throwing a single pass. "I think there's a certain comfort level that you have with your neighbors" when everyone is connected to the same college, said the 37-year-old, who majored in civil engineering. Sitting next to the construction trailer is his gold Range Rover adorned with a Georgia Tech license plate stamped with 1989, his graduation year. But Tech connections aren't required for those who buy one of the $800,000-plus homes on 600 acres in north Fulton and southeast Cherokee counties. Here, as in most of the university-linked developments popping up around the country, residents may include the parents of students and people without any affiliation at all. In those geared to older adults, buyers have been retired faculty members and the retired parents of faculty. No matter who lives there, such communities reflect on the universities associated with them, said Ken Bernhardt, a marketing professor at Georgia State University. A school needs to find the right development partner and make sure the project strikes the appropriate tone, he said. "It's no different than a university putting their logo on merchandise," Bernhardt said. "You don't want to have a schlocky development where people are going to blame the university." Done well, they have the potential to promote fund-raising and goodwill. "It's a great mechanism for a university to put together a group of people whose common affinity is the university itself," Bernhardt said. New opportunities Universities have been in the dorm-building business for ages, but these new enterprises give colleges opportunities to offer housing and services to alumni. Leon Pastalan, director of the National Center on Housing and Living Arrangements for Older Americans at the University of Michigan, said universities that don't work retirees into their communities are missing an opportunity. Older alumni can raise endowments, provide mentors to students and foster intergenerational relationships. "Colleges and universities really have this responsibility to society," said Pastalan, a retired architecture professor at the University of Michigan. "I think ultimately they will play a major role, or should play a major role, with what happens in retirement." That has happened at a retirement community near the University of Michigan. The idea for the age-restricted University Commons, built on land once owned by the university, came from faculty and staff who wanted to retire near the Ann Arbor campus. The community's amenity is its proximity to the school. Golfing shouldn't be the central activity in university-linked subdivisions, Pastalan said. "Education should be." But in Georgia, where the golf course formula has proved successful for dozens of subdivisions, the green is the main attraction. It's the focus of the Georgia Club, 12 miles west of Athens in Statham. At the Georgia Tech Club, situated about 30 miles from Tech's Midtown campus, the Rees Jones-designed course also will be home turf for the college's golf team. It was the course that intrigued Melisa Morrow's husband, Will. The couple plan to move from Forsyth County to the Tech development once their 5,200-square-foot home is finished in fall 2005. "Golf doesn't mean anything to me, but my husband is in the golf business, and he's just drooling," said Morrow, 39, who graduated from Tech in 1987. Morrow stopped in and met Hickman, and they discovered common friends from Tech. Those personal connections make the social aspect of the community work, Hickman said. "That's the really exciting part," he said. "I say, 'What year did you graduate?' and 'Do you know so and so?' and I usually get to somebody they know. And that starts a whole new conversation." That her builder and some of the engineers constructing the subdivision's roads are Tech grads is a seal of approval, Morrow said. The developer is Hilton Head-based Melrose Co., which has built golf course communities for 20 years. The Georgia Tech Club and another project called Traditions Club at Texas A&M, under construction in College Station, are the company's first ventures into homes aimed at alumni. In exchange for licensing Tech's logo and sending mailings to alumni, developers agreed to give 10 percent of net operating income and 5 percent of initiation fees to the school, split equally between the alumni association and the athletics department. The development's general manager, Mark Hesemann, estimates the arrangement could generate $500,000 to $1 million annually for Tech once the club is established. The 18-hole golf course and 80 of 223 homes are expected to be ready by summer 2005. So far, the development has sold 58 homes, 19 to homeowners and 39 to builders. Also lured by golf Golf also sold Phyllis Foisy, 49, on the Georgia Club. An avid golfer with a handicap of 6, she loved the course and the proximity to Athens. Her two daughters are undergraduates at UGA, from which her husband, Richard, graduated in 1974. "The Georgia [affiliation] was a bonus," said Foisy, who is building a 5,500-square-foot home on the 12th tee. It's among 65 lots sold to homeowners in the 1,200-acre development, which has room for 1,049 homes. Thirty-five more lots have been sold to builders. Foisy is excited about watching sporting events with future neighbors who are fellow Georgia fans. "You pretty much have a huge allegiance of people following the Dawgs," she said. Cottages aimed at empty-nesters begin in the high $200,000s; some custom homes are going for more than $1 million. The golf course opened three years ago. Its clubhouse is decorated with columns, which also serve as the community's logo. Inside the pro shop, hats and shirts in Georgia red and black are on sale, along with merchandise with the Georgia Club's logo. The company paid for the right to put a Georgia "G" on some of the merchandise. Statham-based Barber Creek LLP was created to develop the community, which originally was to include a hotel and office park. Those plans have been put on hold because of the economy, said the company's chief executive officer, Jim Vanden Berg, a developer with 30 years of experience. This is his first golf course community, and also the first for its primary investor, Derek Quinlan, who lives in Ireland and has no connection to the university. "He saw the opportunity and the market for it and the strong affiliation with the alumni wanting to come back to school," Vanden Berg said of Quinlan, whom he described as a real estate investor. About 75 percent of Georgia alumni stay in the state, so there's a natural market, Vanden Berg said. "I think that they have very, very fond memories of their college days," he said. Homes are under construction in Barrow County, but the Georgia Club lacks zoning approval for houses on one-third of its acreage in Oconee County, said Brad Callender, a planner with the county. The project is undergoing a review for large-scale developments by the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center. Barrow and Oconee governments also need to sign an agreement extending sewer lines from the Barrow city of Statham into Oconee County. Vanden Berg said the master plan has been submitted, and homes in Oconee would be built around a new 9-hole course. Like the Georgia Tech Club, the Georgia Club's relationship isn't with the university but with the school's alumni association. An agreement gives the Georgia Club access to the association's mailing list. The alumni association will receive $1 million over 10 years in exchange for its endorsement and for granting access to logos, said Dave Muia, the retired executive director of the association who negotiated the deals. Living at the community doesn't give residents carte blanche to take classes on the Athens campus, but the developer is looking into offering lectures, perhaps by UGA professors. Football-oriented If golf doesn't appeal to some alumni, Gary B. Spillers is hoping football will. He is developing condos in Southeastern college towns to provide alumni with places to stay after games. In Athens, his project under construction is called "Gameday Centers." It's on Broad and Clayton streets about four blocks from Sanford Stadium. Spillers also built condos near universities in Auburn and Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Knoxville. The company pays a 1 percent fee to the school's athletic association, said Avery McLean, UGA's associate athletics director for marketing and licensing. In exchange, the association sends out mailings advertising the condos to season-ticket holders and other interested parties, McLean said. The eight-story, 130,000-square-foot building is expected to be finished this fall. Spillers said 124 of 133 units have been sold for $143,000 to $500,000. His target market is retiring baby boomers who love UGA, he said. "They're the wealthiest people in the country right now, college-educated baby boomers," he said.