The Penn Board of Trustees voted today to lease The Radian as student housing to facilitate renovations in the Quad over the next three years.
While the Quad is being renovated, the University will shut down college houses within the Quad over a period of three years to allow for safe construction, including the movement of large construction equipment. The Quad renovations were announced in February 2021 and were originally set to take place over six summers from 2022 to 2027. The lease is set to begin next fall semester in August 2023.
Barbara Lea-Kruger, director of communications and external relations, Doug Berger, executive director of business services, and Karu Kozuma, executive director of college houses and academic services, informed The Daily Pennsylvanian about the decision today.
Riepe College House will be closed from May 2023 to May 2024, followed by Ware College House from May 2024 to May 2025, and lastly Fisher-Hassenfeld College House from May 2025 to May 2026. During this time, first-year students who would have lived in the Quad will instead be placed into one of Penn’s four-year college houses, particularly Gregory College House, Stouffer College House, and Lauder College House.
To ensure that there are enough rooms for second, third, and fourth years, Penn will enter into a three-year lease with The Radian, an off-campus apartment complex, to house students from August 2023 to August 2026.
Upperclass students will be able to select The Radian as a housing option this spring semester during the housing selection process. Housing in The Radian through Penn will cost $15,418 per academic year — the same as Penn’s current higher-cost housing option.
“It will function as a three-year college house, such as the high rises, and there will be about 460 beds total,” Berger said. “The majority of the beds are in four-bedroom apartments.”
Students and individuals who are currently living in The Radian have the option to renew their lease, but they must go through Penn to do so, according to Lea-Kruger.
Berger added that the reasoning behind the change in plans is that the Quad’s architects and contractors said that the amount of work necessary to safely renovate the Quad cannot be finished in the amount of time a summer term offers.
Every room in the Radian is a private room and includes full kitchens and washers and dryers. The Radian currently includes 4 bed/2 bath, 4 bed/4 bath, 3 bed/2 bath, 2 bed/2 bath, and 1 bed/1 bath apartments. Apartments currently range in price from $1,369 to $2,545.
“We’ve been told everybody in The Radian is a Penn student, either graduate or undergraduate,” Berger said. He added that graduate students currently living in The Radian will be able to obtain a lease in Sansom Place East, which is scheduled to reopen in the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year.
Kozuma shared that he is confident The Radian will still have the college house feeling and will include resident advisors, graduate associates, a house director, and faculty fellows.
“Even though the physical building is not a college house right now, the community will become a college house,” Kozuma said.
Like other on-campus college houses, The Radian will have security portals and an information center, and will be open to all Penn students. A name for the new college house has yet to be decided.
This decision comes as the latest in a series of construction updates on campus. Penn will begin construction of a new shared-use office building in place of the McDonald’s at 40th and Walnut streets in either late December or early January 2023. Additionally, Penn recently announced that it will be building a new performing arts theater next to the Annenberg Center.
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