Upland will be welcoming new housing options on Second Street called the Haven on 2nd Street.
The new housing is 28 apartments half a mile from campus. New hires at Taylor University are unable to find houses in Upland and end up living in surrounding communities, Drew Moser, a local real estate agent, and a former dean and professor at Taylor, said.
“As a Realtor, I work with a lot of incoming, new hires to Taylor, who want to live in Upland but can't find a house just because there aren't enough available,” he said. “So they end up in surrounding communities.”
The new housing is being built to account for this, said Moser, who is also the listing agent for these homes.
Juniors Luke Beukelman and Kate Pfaff saw the need for more homes in the community and wanted to help.
Pfaff said she and Beukelman heard there were problems for professors trying to find housing in Upland near Taylor. Many didn’t want to buy a house, either, preferring apartment-style living.
They serve as the managers for Haven on 2nd Street. Pfaff said this means they help connect interested parties to the real estate agent. They also help with any issues tenants have.
Beukelman came up with the idea last year, Pfaff said. The two then sat down with their families to discuss whether or not a project like this would be realistic.
Pfaff said their parents are supporting them in this process, serving as investors and the owners of the land. Beukelman and Pfaff led the project, however.
“[The parents] really only wanted to do it if we were wanting to do it just as a learning experience for me and Luke,” Pfaff said.
The apartments are built on land that used to belong to Taylor University. It used to be home to the university’s only off-campus housing: Fairlane apartments.
There will be seven buildings with four apartments in each building. Each unit is two beds and one bath, with a private garage and patio, Moser said.
One apartment building is already finished, with the next set to finish mid-October. The buildings are set to finish in increments. This means a new building will be finished every four to six weeks after the previous one.
“If you drive by there, you'll see one building has cars in front of it. Another building looks really done, and then others look in various stages of the building process,” Moser said.
Of the one buildings are already finished; three of the four available units are rented.
“We have three out of four available units already full, and they were just available as of last week,” Moser said.
The construction of the homes is being handled by Barkley Builders Incorporated, a company that serves northeast Indiana in building residential and commercial projects.
Helping people move in with the continued construction has been a complex process, Moser said.
“There's dealing with the builder’s timeline, and then the utilities getting installed and connected, water, electricity, trash collection, those sorts of things and just making sure all that syncs up,” Moser said. “So now it's a combination of trying to fill the units that are available while also still finishing the project, because it's still a construction zone, but it's also people's homes, right?”
The apartments have a Facebook page people can visit for updates, called “Haven on 2nd Street,” said Moser. Those interested in the houses can contact him at 765-6718-7408.
