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How a $250-Million Campus-Housing Deal Went Bad

By Lee Gardner | NOVEMBER 24, 2019 ✓ PREMIUM

Mike Simons for The Chronicle

David L. Boren had grand plans for Cross Village.

As the long-serving president of the University of Oklahoma, he planned to expand the Norman campus's capacity for housing upperclassmen without incurring any debt. Cross Village would feature about 1,200 beds arrayed in apartment-style suites, as well as accompanying parking and some ground-floor retail space, all set to open in the fall of

A student-housing project at the U. of Oklahoma, only one-third occupied a year after it opened, has become a cautionary tale about public- private partnerships.

2018. The project would be built through a $250-million deal that used none of the university's money, just private capital.

By the fall of 2019, however, Boren was gone. Cross Village was only about a third full, and the ground-floor retail space was deserted. The bonds issued for the project have been downgraded, and the company that borrowed the money for the project could default on its loan payments. Accusations fly between the university and the borrowers and bondholders, and soon, so may lawsuits.

The deal-gone-sour between Oklahoma and the Cross Village developers provides a cautionary tale for colleges and private firms entering such agreements — called public-private partnerships, or P3s — which are an increasingly popular workaround to tight college budgets.