Students thoughts on the new apartment building at the University

of Maryland

Sketches of Terrapin Row prior to construction.

Note the shopping malls located at the bottom.

COLLEGE PARK, Md.-University of Marylands new student residence building,

Terrapin Row, was created to be convenient, youthful, and a great place for
students to study, socialize and just be themselves, according to their
website.

Junior, Sonali Pontel lived at Terrapin Row for the Fall 2016 semester. She
mentions that the facility has great amenities such as a huge room with a
personal bathroom, access to a gym, a pool during seasonal months, as well
as access to a study room. Pontel enjoyed Terrapin Row compared to the
other apartments that she previously lived in at College Park because of its
extensive number of unique services.

Although it was an extremely nice place to live I got scared at times

because of how far away it was from campus and Route 1. It also had poor
security which made me uncomfortable at times, Pontel said.

Terrapin Row is nearly 0.8 miles from Greek Row, 1.2 miles from McKeldin
Library, and 2.8 miles from North Campus. In comparison to other residence
apartments such as Landmark, it is measurably further, which makes
students feel unsafe. Terrapin row lacks security cameras, which causes for a
great amount of vandalizing to occur throughout the facilities. Along with
this, there is no structured method for checking guests or residents into the
building.
I could open the front door and just walk right to my room without scanning
a card or talking to the front desk receptionist, said sophomore, Clare
Robinson.

-more-

Robinson, a business major, said she likes the actually living arrangement of
Terrapin Row for multiple reasons: it is located towards the back edge of
campus making it extremely easy to walk to the business school, it has a
large community within the residence for socializing, tailgating and grilling.
Clare mentions that the price is extremely high, but with all that it provides
and being fully furnished she claims it to be reasonable.

On-campus dorms cost less than their face value, a little more than $6,000 a
year. But a mandatory meal plan for those living on-campus increases costs
above the price of Terrapin Row.

According to Terrapin rows original contract the campus includes six

building, 429 units with 1,567 beds, restaurants, bars, shops, a Village
Green, and a cascading stair case that is modeled after Romes Spanish
steps.

Many students signed a lease in November 2015 for an apartment for the
upcoming year of August 2016. Many signed thinking they were going to
receive all the luxurious amenities that were mentioned in the leasing
contract. But after living there for more than a week residents noticed that
the shops and bars were not present.

We never had any stores underneath, which was annoying because they
said wed have that when we signed our lease, said sophomore, Audrey
Frank.

Although this frustrated many students, each apartment was still equipped
with a full functioning kitchen plus many other new amenities, which are
beneficial for many students. Vegetarian, Bridget Morris enjoys having the
kitchen because it allows her to prepare foods that she normally couldnt get
from the Dining Halls.

With my strict diet it is extremely nice to have my own kitchen. It was

difficult to eat when I had a dining plan, said Morris.

Junior, Victoria Yepez has lived in Terrapin Row ever since it opened, which
will be four semesters upon ending this semester. She has had mixed reviews
since living there but claims that her overall experience has been poor and
will not be returning next semester.
The first semester I lived there I knew there were going to be some issues,
but it has now been almost four semesters later and the same issues are a
problem such as security, Yepez stated.

From the results collected, it is easy to come to a conclusion that is based

around the lack of security enforced at Terrapin Row. Security is an easy fix,
and with all the amenities at the residence there is still hope for success.

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