Developers are preparing a 305-bed student housing complex at College Avenue and Montezuma Road, just 100 feet from the core of San Diego State University's campus. The eight-story, 110-unit project at 5077 College Avenue is the latest private bet on relentless demand for beds near San Diego State University, part of the California State University system.
Developers Akara Partners and Deven Group closed construction financing and equity for the roughly 98,500-square-foot development, with construction set to begin immediately, according to Boston Real Estate Times. The two firms are acting as joint-venture co-general partners and co-developers on the project, with JLL Capital Markets credited with facilitating the partnership. Akara spent more than two years sourcing and securing entitlements for the site, the outlet reports, and the building is scheduled for delivery for the 2028-29 academic year.
The property is listed as built in 1952, and the site was entitled for high-density student housing, according to Redfin property records. The redevelopment reflects a broader rezoning push unfolding across the neighborhood.
Why Developers Are Betting Big on SDSU
Rajen Shastri, founder and chief executive officer of Akara Partners, framed the project as a response to a market that rarely opens up. He said SDSU combines long-term growth with high barriers to entry, per the report from Boston Real Estate Times. Thom Cunningham, president and CEO of Deven Group — which is backed by parent company Kajima USA — said San Diego State is a supply-constrained, high-growth market where his company's platform can add value, and Deven Group said it welcomed the partnership with Akara as it expands its U.S. student housing development pipeline.
Those comments track with the university's own numbers. SDSU's Fall 2025 census recorded a record 41,184 students across its main campus and Imperial Valley location, the first time enrollment topped 40,000 after five consecutive years of growth, according to SDSU NewsCenter. That incoming class alone included 6,911 first-year students chosen from more than 95,000 applicants. Developers behind the College Avenue project say the university is growing toward an enrollment of 50,000 students, per Boston Real Estate Times, and that on-campus housing supply has remained effectively flat for a decade despite that growth and rising out-of-state demand.
A Supply Gap SDSU Is Also Racing to Fix
SDSU isn't standing still on the issue. The university's multi-phase Evolve Student Housing initiative aims to add up to 4,500 new beds on campus to relieve pressure on the surrounding rental market, according to KPBS, with housing leaders there noting that students living on campus tend to post higher GPAs and graduate faster than off-campus commuters. That internal push runs alongside SDSU's mandatory two-year live-on requirement for non-local first-year and sophomore students, a policy fully implemented in Fall 2019 under its Sophomore Success Program that requires out-of-area students to stay in university or university-affiliated housing for four academic semesters, per CBS 8 San Diego.
Private infill projects like the College Avenue tower are also riding a wave of city-level rezoning. San Diego planning officials in late 2025 recommended an updated College Area Community Plan that would increase housing capacity from about 8,000 homes to roughly 34,000 over 30 years around SDSU, according to inewsource. It would mark the first major overhaul of the College Area master blueprint since 1989. That plan has also drawn neighborhood opposition to high-density upzoning, inewsource notes, setting up a tension between institutional and student demand for housing and resident pushback over density along corridors like College Avenue and Montezuma Road.
What's Inside the New Building
The new development will offer predominantly private-bedroom accommodations alongside a swimming pool deck, rooftop lounge, and fitness facilities overlooking campus, per Boston Real Estate Times. Plans also call for dedicated study and coworking spaces and ground-floor conveniences, with the site designed to provide transit access to the university and surrounding destinations without relying exclusively on private vehicles. Nearby destinations include the Aztec Student Union, an SDSU trolley station, a Trader Joe's, and the university's fraternity and sorority row, the outlet reports.
The project adds to a growing list of private student housing bets near SDSU. In August 2023, developers completed the $106 million Union Grantville complex at the Grantville Transit Center, adding 250 units one trolley stop from campus that opened with 95% occupancy and rents starting around $2,634 a month, as Hoodline previously reported. SDSU has also expanded its own residential footprint beyond the main campus, advancing a 250-unit senior living community and 747 additional residential units at its satellite Mission Valley campus, with construction on the senior tower slated to begin in late 2027.
A Statewide Housing Squeeze
The College Avenue project fits into a much larger pattern across California's public university system. CSU campuses statewide added more than 17,000 student beds between 2014 and 2024 to address escalating housing costs, according to a 2025 CSU system analysis cited by the Los Angeles Times, and state officials have considered university construction bond measures on state ballots to help fund further bed expansions. SDSU's own institutional profile has risen alongside that growth: the university has R1 status and is a member of the Pac-12 Conference.
Developers say those shifts in academic and athletic standing are part of what's drawing institutional capital to a few blocks of College Avenue. For now, the 305-bed project represents the newest entrant into a market where demand for beds near campus has consistently outpaced what the university alone can build, with the Boston Real Estate Times framing the financing close and plans to begin construction immediately as marking a new phase for the site.
