The trap of luxury: over-priced student apartments

9 minutes — Walk to ‘Block M’
$165 — Price of a parking spot
$795 — Rent per person for a four bedroom, two bathroom apartment

The urban-inspired rooms and sleek, minimalist furniture at 4 Eleven Lofts look more Manhattan than Ann Arbor. And because the building is just two blocks from Main Street, there are countless nearby bars, restaurants and other entertainment venues.

Like Zaragon Place and The Courtyards, 4 Eleven Lofts has a fitness room for residents and provides an HD flat-screen television for each living room. All utilities, including cable and Internet, are covered with a flat rate of $95 — which can be a deal, considering high winter heating bills for drafty older houses.

The benefits of living at 4 Eleven, however, end there. The rooms are small and don’t come with lighting, while storage space is seriously lacking. There are no closets and the armoires that come with the rooms take up what precious space there is.

Residents complained about the size of the fitness room (there are only six machines), as well as noise traveling through the paper-thin walls.

“You can hear everything that goes on in the other apartments,” Business School junior Ian Mark said. “Our neighbors complain about us all the time.”

And though residents laud the proximity to downtown, anyone with classes farther than Angell Hall has a much longer commute.

“I’m a B-school student so my walk is brutal,” said sophomore Jake Barnett. “I know in the winter it’s going to be really tough.”

Our advice: Proximity to the Main Street bars is definitely a plus for graduate students and seniors who are tired of South University nightlife. But you can find a cheaper place with better insulated walls.

Zaragon Place

4 minutes — Walk to ‘Block M’
$180 — Price of a parking spot
$1,100 — Rent per person for a four bedroom, two bathroom apartment

Location, location, location. The biggest perk to living at Zaragon Place is a short walk to Central Campus. It’s right across the street from the library, the Ross School of Business and numerous South University bars and restaurants.

The fitness room is huge and the concrete walls and ceilings help to insulate the sound, blocking out noise from the endless parties that seem to happen in the building.

“There are a lot of parties up on the ninth floor,” LSA junior Kate Slaga said. “But as soon as I go down (to my apartment), I can’t hear a single thing. They’ll be blasting music and you can’t hear it at all.”

The ninth floor is home to eight two-story penthouses that provide a view of the South University area — for whatever that might be worth.

Zaragon currently features an on-site café on the main floor, with soups, salads and sandwiches. And with a grocery store on the way, residents will soon be able to have beer, wine and pre-packaged meals delivered to their door. Residents gave the personable staff high marks.

Boasting a convenient location and above average amenities, Zaragon is by far one of the most expensive student-focused apartment buildings in Ann Arbor. Residents say it’s worth it, but these residents are also more affluent students.

Our advice: If you can afford it, Zaragon’s a great place to live. Nothing beats the location and on-site food services, and the residents sure know how to have fun. But do you really need to be paying this much to live in Ann Arbor?

The Courtyards

36 minutes — Walk to ‘Block M’
$90 or $110 — Price of a parking spot
$699 — Rent per person for a four bedroom, four bathroom apartment

Yes, it’s on North Campus. If you have classes in Lorch, go to parties on Greenwood and eat at Sadako for every meal, then The Courtyards are out of the question.

But for Engineering majors and School of Art & Design students, nothing beats this value-priced pick.

The Courtyards are the cheapest of the three luxury student complexes, and rife with amenities: tanning beds, a badminton court, a 24-hour fitness room, a state-of-the art theater room with stadium seating and surround sound, study rooms on every floor and multiple common areas that provide grills, fireplaces and various gaming systems for the residents free of charge. Each bedroom also comes with its own private bathroom.

“I’ve had the experience of living on Central and now on North. It was a factor to consider,” Engineering junior Katelyn Videto said. “But I can honestly tell you there isn’t anything I don’t like about being here.”

The Courtyards apartments aren’t loft-style or urban. The rooms are simple and pleasantly decorated, more like a parent’s home than a friend’s city apartment.

Our advice: Don’t live here if you have no business being on North Campus. But if the majority of your classes are there, and your friends are too, The Courtyards are your best bet (free tanning and badminton!). Hell, if North Campus wasn’t so damn far away, we might even consider living there.