Emporia’s rental housing market will soon have new offerings with the opening of the Merchant Place Townhomes at 1107 Merchant St.
The town homes are less than a block from the Emporia State University campus, and the developer says they offer a number of amenities for students, faculty members or anyone looking for the space and features of a house with the convenience of an apartment.
“It’s a little bit different from what you would typically find around campus, even with a lot of the new construction that’s been happening the last few years,” said Jamie Sauder, co-owner of the town homes and Re/Max Realtor.
There are eight units in the building, each with two bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a washer, dryer and dishwasher. Internet access, both wired and wireless, is included in the $750 per month rent.
Sauder said the homes are all-electric, and rent includes water and trash. In addition, there are three floor plans to choose from.
Sauder said he is excited about the design of the town homes.
“We didn’t want to build something that would look like everything else that’s been built recently,” he said. “We wanted to stand out, and that’s why we got the row home look with the mansard walls. We’re really excited about them.”
The best part, according to Sauder, is the location.
“Location-wise, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would call it an 11,” he said, “given its proximity to campus and the grocery store and the convenience store and just about everything you would need.”
Sauder said part of his motivation to build the town homes came from his experiences as a student at Baker University.
“I lived in a place in Lawrence that had all the amenities you would need,” he said, “everything right there in the apartment. I wanted these to be state-of-the-art and have everything a college student would need, so they wouldn’t have to go to the Laundromat, wouldn’t have to do all the things I hated when I was an undergraduate, and that was part of the idea behind it.”
In addition to the conveniences for tenants, Sauder said he and his father, Steve Sauder, saw it as an opportunity to revitalize an area recently occupied by houses that had outlived their usefulness.
“When the opportunity came about to do this, there were two old homes here, and my dad and I saw an opportunity to help clean up the downtown area a little bit. There’s been an outcry for cleaning up and revitalizing the downtown living, so we saw the chance to get rid of a couple of old houses and put up something that will not only benefit us from an investment standpoint, but we thought, more importantly, that would benefit the university and the community. ...”
The two houses were torn down in December 2007 and ground for the project was broken the following March. Sauder said the townhomes should be finished and ready to rent in the next couple of weeks.
“It’s taken a little bit longer, but we’re doing it right,” Sauder said. It’s going to be a very good building. I hope 20 years from now it will still be relatively as nice as it is today. That’s my goal.”