Kansas University junior Amy Harris lives in the Oread Neighborhood, near KU's campus. The area is a mix of family and student housing. Some students seeking the amenities of larger apartment complexes are moving farther away from campus for the lifestyle they'd like.

Nick Flaucher and Staci Ford, both freshmen, are making opposite decisions about where to live after leaving Kansas University’s residence halls at the end of the semester.

Of the two friends from Johnson County, one will live in the historically student neighborhoods some call the “student ghetto,” near campus, downtown and parties. The other will live at the Reserve, far from campus but near shopping, restaurants and on the bus route to KU.

The decision they’re making is one made by KU students every year. But as the number of high-end apartment complexes – one proposal would even put an apartment complex on a golf course – on the fringes of town multiply, low-cost student housing appears to be holding its own with students looking for a place to live.

“Mine is close to everywhere I wanted to be,” said Flaucher, who is renting a house near downtown. “It’s close to campus, it’s close to Mass. Street, it’s close to parties.”

Ford, on the other hand, looked at her priorities a little differently. This time next year, she plans to be living at The Reserve, 31st and Iowa streets.

“It was a good price, and it came already furnished,” she said. “It was nicer than some of the places close to campus and at a price I could afford.”

In fact, Ford said that price and the environment of a possible residence were so important to her that she never gave a thought to apartments or houses for rent near campus.

Other students take some variation on both Flaucher and Ford’s calculations in deciding where they want to live for the next year. Freshman Cate Tracy, for instance, wanted somewhere close, reasonably priced and on the bus route, she said as she waited for a bus to take her back to her residence hall on Daisy Hill.

She settled on Meadowbrook Apartments.

“I really wanted to be close to campus,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to drive far or ride the bus long.”

Several companies are betting that there will be more and more students like Ford, looking for affordable quality no matter where in town it’s located, as they plan to build several new apartment complexes in town.

Arkansas-based Lindsey Management Co. hopes to break ground soon on a 480-unit golf and apartment complex north of Sixth Street in northwest Lawrence. That new complex, called The Links, is expected to add as many as 800 bedrooms to the Lawrence market.

Another complex, The Exchange, is planned for 31st Street and Ousdahl Road. Texas-based Fairfield Residential is expecting phase one to be completed within the coming months with 324 of the 750 planned units built. Eventually, that complex could add 1,500 or more units to the Lawrence market.

All this is planned despite a steady, or slightly declining, population in Lawrence and at Kansas University.

Current Lawrence landlords say, however, that while there’s certainly a market for new apartments on the fringe of town, there will always be a number of students seeking the atmosphere they can find near campus and downtown.

Serina Hearn, an Oread Neighborhood landlord and owner of Rainbow Works, says the ever-increasing number of apartment complexes has done little to stem the interest she sees in her properties.

“There are lots of kids coming out of dorms that are looking for these kinds of houses,” Hearn said. “I have some houses right now that people are asking about for August 2009 to 2010.”

She long ago rented out all of her houses in the Oread area for this fall.

Hearn said she’s always looked at renting houses first from the standpoint as a way of restoring beautiful old houses. She said she’s always renting houses that can compete or exceed brand-new apartment buildings in terms of quality.

“I’m very much an advocate for old houses. My goal has always been to give the house the best possible advantage in terms of restoring it,” she said. “That vision happens to coincide with people who are looking for nice houses.”

She said the increased competition from new apartment complexes with extensive lists of amenities may compete more directly with two types of properties: those that are maintained by “so-called slumlords” and those that are in primarily family neighborhoods near elementary schools.

“If anything, apartments might have affected that corner of the market,” she said.

Hearn, who’s lived in the Oread Neighborhood herself, said the benefits of living in close proximity “to downtown, to the brewery” is something she thinks can’t ever be replicated by an apartment complex on the edge of town.

“You can’t ever replace the Oread Neighborhood with apartments,” she said.