This afternoon the Chancellor of North Carolina Central University will ask to invoke emergency procedures regarding lease agreements for student housing.

The agenda for the University of North Carolina Board of Governors Committee on Budget and Finance says members will discuss entering into lease arrangements for students requesting on-campus housing for the fall semester.

New freshman admissions at NCCU reveal a significant increase. Admits for July 31, 2009, numbered 3,527 whereas the same figure for last year was 2,188.  Some say the increase is due to the economy.

Due to the rush of freshmen, NCCU has partnered with Durham's Millennium Hotel to house 300 juniors, seniors, graduate, and law students. This arrangement will consume about half of the hotel's capacity.

“The North Carolina Department of Administration's State Property Office, using its emergency procedures, secured a lease in Durham for the fall semester,” the agenda says. “The lease could be renewed, on an as-needed basis, for the 2010 spring semester.”

The hotel will provide 300 beds at a cost of $1,960 per bed per semester. Student housing receipts will fund the total cost of the lease, which the system estimates will be around $588,000 per semester.

“It is expected that the total cost of the lease will be completely offset by rents charged to the students living in these locations,” it says. “Rents charged to the students would be consistent with comparable on-campus housing.“