Two new apartment complexes planned near the SDSU campus will give renters more amenities while helping Brookings have enough housing for future growth.
The new properties that will be completed in summer 2026 are the Paragon and Latitude 44.
These new complexes will add more amenities that will be important for people looking for a space to rent in the Brookings area. Mike Struck, Brookings’ community development director, said how these projects are moving forward at a time that presents various challenges for builders.
“The biggest challenge that we’ve seen in the last couple years has really been on the financing side,” Struck said. “With the interest rates climbing to where they are it just isn’t feasible for some of these projects to move forward without some sort of assistance.”
Struck said there have been other projects that were good but had to wait to move forward because of land prices or harsh interest rates.
“It’s a combination of many things, but I think as the community continues to grow and as we see additional commercial activity I think the opportunities are there,” Struck said.
According to Struck, based on a 2022 Brookings County housing study, Brookings is going to just about reach its goal of having the number of units that the study called for.
As outlined in the study, it was predicted that the city of Brookings would grow to about 27,676 people in the next decade. Based off of this prediction to the year 2035, the study outlined that, “an average of 147 units will need to be constructed each year.”
Paragon will be on Campanile Avenue north of BankStar. It will have 84 units and will include studios and one and two-bedroom spaces. There will also be an exercise room and conference room along with an outdoor patio.
Parking will be indoors on the main floor of the complex, with secure bike storage as well. A few units will also include balconies and electric car chargers as other features this unit offers.
Construction for this project will begin sometime between May and June.
The second complex, Latitude 44, will be on Sixth Street, with 144 units consisting of studios, one- and two-bedroom spaces. The main floor will be a mix between indoor parking and commercial space. This complex will also offer an outdoor patio, bicycle storage, some balconies, an exercise room and conference room. Construction will begin this spring.
“It’s the same developer on both,” Struck said. “They’re kind of looking at increasing the number of units in the community. We did a housing study in 2022 for the city and county, and within that it mentioned there are a certain number of units added in five-year increments.”
The housing study said there is a higher percentage of renter-occupied housing compared to the state and national average, with Brookings County at 41.1% and the city of Brookings percentage being 50.9%.
According to Zillow, the average rent in South Dakota is $1,078 with the rental price ranging from $490 to $3,500. Brookings 48% lower than the national average.
Projects are working to accommodate more features that rental properties in the Brookings area have learned are what many renters specifically search for in a rental space.
Shawn Storhaug, owner of Brookings Property Management, said they work closely with the engineers and owners to not only consider pricing for materials and overall cost of units, but also to build and add components to make them quality units.
Storhaug said he hopes these new buildings provide enough housing that there won’t be any such occupancy problem. He added that it is important to continue to move forward on these projects and take the chance to provide more housing in the Brookings area.
Many students, after completing two years of their degree, opt to move off-campus and rent a place to stay that allows them to commute to school and have a change from living in campus residence halls.
“It’s always a partnership trying to meet the demands of the community and the university,” Struck said. “I think it’s always a challenge because you never know when that big class is going to hit but you want to try to and be prepared, and unfortunately in construction, it’s a long build process and we have a short construction season, so it’s challenging.”
Junior computer science major Leo Ostigaard is finishing his first year living off campus and while he enjoys being off campus, it was new to then have a landlord but has learned the importance of communication between landlord and tenant.
“Learning how to rent and how to handle issues that come up with the house, like reaching out to the landlord about that kind of stuff, that was all new to me, so that was more of the thing I was worried about coming into it,” Ostigaard said.
Ostigaard said that he did have a rent increase but sees it as a reasonable increase for the property. He advises students to take a housing opportunity if they get it.
“I know it may be hard to take that step, you don’t know what you’ll get,” Ostigaard said. “It was kind of easier for me since I had connections with the residents of the house that I am now in, so I had the inside scoop on that. I would say go for it, and overall, as a person I think you grow from it. Living away from your parents at college in a dorm is a step of independence and then working with a landlord and renting, that’s even better.”
Senior Wynn Sandman, a double major in criminology and psychology, is finishing her second year living off-campus and, though she learned that when it comes to renting, what a place offers is important to consider when evaluating housing options along with what that price includes.
Ostigaard and Sandman said that being off campus seems to be cheaper when campus housing and dining costs are compared to what rent and grocery costs.
Sandman advises new students to look into new properties to determine important qualities they want and to consider what it means to sign a lease. When she and her roommates started their first year of renting, they were unsure of what to look for but have since gained insight into what each property offers.
“We also, to a degree, we felt like we had to rush into our first lease because it kind of sounded like we wouldn’t get anything else, and it was kind of pitched that way,” Sandman said. “Sign by tomorrow or somebody else will swoop in and that’s not a good enough excuse to put yourself into a legally binding contract for a year.”
