Student housing: The Ridge at Clemson

Aerial render of four terraced buildings on a wooded slope — Four bars on four cut terraces. Every image on this page is a render of an unbuilt scheme, made from the design geometry after it was fixed. No photograph of a completed building appears anywhere on this page, and no figure is measured off an image.

216

beds

60 apartments: 48 at four bed / four bath, 12 at two bed / two bath

6.65 ac

measured site

Four contiguous parcels, one owner, measured on the county GIS polygon — against 7.66 ac claimed by the listing

101 ft

of relief

The site falls from 840 to 739 ft. Mean slope 12.3%, median 19.3%

1.00

space per bed

216 stalls: 88 tuck-under beneath the buildings, 128 on the surface

The move

Terrace the ground instead of flattening it.

Most student housing is built on the flattest land somebody could find. This site is the opposite: it falls a hundred feet from its high corner to a creek, and the steepest third of it is mature hardwood and pine. So the buildings step down it on four cut terraces, and the uphill retaining wall of each terrace doubles as the enclosure of the parking tucked beneath the building.

That single decision does three things at once. It recovers 88 parking spaces from ground that could not otherwise hold them. It puts the cars out of the view and out of the weather. And it lets the steep third of the site stay exactly as it is — which is also what satisfies both the 25% open space requirement and the tree retention requirement, with the same ground.

The apartment plan came out of one geometric test. A 64 ft deep double-loaded corridor bar was drawn first and rejected: it left two bedrooms per unit with no window. The unit was made to span the full 34 ft depth of the building instead, so all four bedrooms reach a facade. That test set the building type, the building depth and — through the depth — the earthwork.

Three-storey student housing building, courtyard elevation — Each bar is 200 ft × 34 ft, three storeys, 15 apartments, 54 beds and 22 tuck-under stalls. 200 ft is exactly the maximum building length the ordinance allows.

The uphill face of a building with parking tucked underneath — The tuck-under condition. The enclosure wall runs 15.1 ft from natural grade to the parking slab and is braced at the top by the podium, so it works at rest rather than active.

The amenity

6,600 sq ft indoors, in one building.

The clubhouse sits on the highest terrace — the one with the view back down the ridge. Typical student housing delivers 15 to 25 sq ft of indoor amenity per bed. This scheme carries 31.

Space	Area	What it is
Fitness centre	2,000 SF	Cardio row facing the glazing, free weights, mirrored wall
Academic study lounge	1,250 SF	Window-wall carrels plus two communal tables
Enclosed study pods	350 SF	3 glazed pods, acoustic felt, 4–6 seats each
Coffee bar and social lounge	900 SF	Espresso counter, fireplace, soft seating
Games and media lounge	700 SF	TV wall, table games, group seating
Leasing and management office	700 SF	On-site management, packages, maintenance requests
Restrooms, changing, back of house	700 SF	Pool changing rooms and staff
Total indoor amenity	6,600 SF	Plus a 2,560 SF pool and 19,244 SF of designed green and terraces

Study lounge with window-wall carrels — 1,600 sq ft of dedicated study space, three enclosed acoustic pods

Fitness centre opening onto the pool terrace — 2,000 sq ft — 926 sq ft of gym floor per 100 beds

Pool terrace at dusk — 2,560 sq ft of water on the highest terrace

Coffee bar and lounge with fireplace — 900 sq ft coffee bar and social lounge, 700 sq ft games and media room

The drawings

What the brochure figures come from.

The leasing brochure and the drawing set are generated from one model, so they cannot drift apart: 216 beds, 34.4% open space and 31 sq ft of indoor amenity per bed appear in both because they are read out of the same file. Click any sheet to open it full size.

Typical building floor plan and south elevation — A-2.01 — typical building: 200 ft × 34 ft, 15 units, 54 beds, 22 tuck-under stalls

Typical four bedroom four bathroom unit plan — A-1.01 — the 4 bed / 4 bath apartment, 1,360 sq ft, every bedroom on an exterior wall

Site and landscape plan — L-1.01 — designed open space 6.6%, conserved 28.3%, total 34.4% against a 25% minimum

Site section through the four terraces — C-6.01 — ground line taken from the measured USGS 3DEP surface, not drawn by eye

Terrain and slope analysis of the site — C-3.01 — 101 ft of relief, mean slope 12.3% falling to azimuth 10°

The site, acre by acre

Every area, and the sums close.

289,748 sq ft of land accounted for row by row. The last two rows are listed rather than absorbed into the others, because a schedule that closes only by hiding its remainder is not a schedule.

Item	SF	%	What it is
Residential building footprint	27,200	9.4	4 buildings at 6,800 SF each in plan
Clubhouse footprint	6,600	2.3	Single storey, seven spaces scheduled
Swimming pool, water surface	2,560	0.9	Excludes the surrounding paved terrace
Surface parking and drive terraces	42,240	14.6	128 stalls at 330 SF gross, aisles included
Pedestrian spine, paved	3,084	1.1	600 ft of lit accessible route
Designed green — courts, pool terrace	16,159	5.6	Common open space under Ord. 19-304.e.f
Conserved open space — slope and stream	82,034	28.3	Retained tree stand, Ord. 19-906; never disturbed
Perimeter setback strip	74,699	25.8	25 ft to every boundary; no building, no parking
Unprogrammed remainder	35,169	12.1	Planted banks, the eastern wedge, land in reserve
Measured site	289,748	100.0	6.6517 ac — the sum of every row above

The 25 ft perimeter setback strip is 74,699 sq ft — a quarter of the site carrying no building and no parking, by rule rather than by choice. Together with the unprogrammed remainder that is 37.9% of the land being bought, and that is the honest read of what this site yields.

Not approved

The scheme is unbuildable as the site is zoned today.

Multi-family development is a dash on Table 19-302 in the RM-1 and RM-2 districts these four parcels carry. It requires a zoning map amendment to RM-4 plus conditional use approval by the City of Clemson. That, and not survey or design, is the critical path — and the recommended first action in the package is to take the rezoning question to Clemson Planning before spending anything on survey, geotechnical work or design.

Severity	Open item	Why it matters	What closes it
PREREQUISITE	Multi-family is not permitted in RM-1 or RM-2	The programme is unbuildable as zoned. A map amendment, not a permit.	City Council rezoning to RM-4, then conditional use
PREREQUISITE	No boundary or topographic survey exists	Every dimension is a cadastral compilation; setbacks and areas can move.	Boundary and topographic survey by a PLS licensed in SC
PREREQUISITE	No geotechnical report	Site Class D is adopted, not measured. Terrace walls need bearing and global stability.	Geotechnical investigation, borings on each terrace
HIGH	Measured 6.65 ac against 7.66 ac claimed	13.2% of the land does not exist. $195,404 per acre, not $169,683.	Survey plus a title commitment with legal descriptions
HIGH	Fire flow for R-2 unverified	If the main cannot deliver it, a tank and pump appear that no sheet makes room for.	Hydrant flow test — the cheapest test that can move this
HIGH	Sanitary sewer invert unknown	The site falls 101 ft away from the street. Gravity may not reach.	Utility survey and City of Clemson sewer atlas

Six of fourteen items from register G-004. The full package carries all of them, each with the party responsible for closing it.

Known weakness

What we would tell an investor, unprompted.

The scheme is held down by where cars fit, not by the ordinance. Density could reach 56 beds per acre — 372 beds — and it stops at 216 because surface parking on a 101 ft hillside runs out first.

The podium is the number that decides it. Tuck-under parking recovers 88 stalls at the price of a structural podium under each building. That cost is not carried in the package, and it will decide whether the scheme is worth building. It should be priced separately from the superstructure.

Open space has 3.3 points of margin. 28.3% against a 25% minimum. Any growth in footprint, drive or terrace eats that first, and a fifth building breaks it outright — which is exactly why the fifth and sixth buildings were deleted from an earlier version of this scheme.

The terrain model is public data. The surface is a USGS 3DEP 10 m model, not a survey. A real survey will move the pad elevations, and with them the terrace walls, which are the largest uncosted item in the scheme.

The Ridge at Clemson.