Shop Talk: Housing in Michigan and Missouri, and Art in West Virginia

Beating the recession?: Developers will take advantage of a “recession-proof” business in Ann Arbor — building student housing for the University of Michigan. The Ann Arbor News reports that private developers have plans for student housing projects that would accommodate close to 4,000 students. The developers say they are responding to a “pent-up demand among students to live in modern apartments” with what the Ann Arbor News describes as “jaw-dropping amenities to anybody who came of age in a cramped student apartment with peeling paint, tattered furniture and a single bathroom.” The rooms will come furnished with private bathrooms, and one developer is planning to install flat-screen TVs in each room.

Bad air: West Virginia University officials have long planned to put an art museum into their Erickson Alumni Center, which was designed by Michael Graves and opened in 1986. The center is scheduled to go through a renovation, but now university officials will not make the art center part of the refurbished building, according to the Charleston Gazette. Instead, the art center will occupy a yet-to-be-built structure near the center, and a passageway will connect the two buildings. University officials said that the costs of converting the center to an art museum were too high — especially since the air-control systems in the building are not operating up to museum standards. The College of Creative Arts has committed to raise $6-million to $7-million for this project. Proposals from architecture firms, including Mr. Graves’s firm, have already come in.

Residences for a career college: Park University’s campus in Parkville, Mo., will put up residence halls to accommodate 250 students. The buildings are expected to be finished by August. “We expect a rising demand for student housing, and this first phase of new construction will enable the university to respond to that need,” Beverley Byers-Pevitts, Park’s president, said in a press release. “The new buildings are designed to fit with our historic architecture and will be a welcomed addition to our campus.”