Education Realty Receives Approval For College View Project

Education Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE:EDR) announced that its predevelopment agreement for the College View university housing development project at Mississippi State University has been approved by the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning.

The construction of the university village will be executed in multiple phases, with the first delivery scheduled in the fall of 2019. This will include around 650 beds and an additional 950 beds in the later phases. College View compound will also get its own day care center, parking, outdoor entertainment zone, recreational facilities as well as retail and restaurant space.

The project comes at a time when the university is witnessing a rise in enrollment and the campus is anticipated to enjoy high occupancy. College View will create a live-learn environment for the students and serve as a gathering hub for the entire Mississippi State community. This development will make the campus a unique learning hub and therefore benefit students, faculty, staff, alumni, local residents and visitors of the Mississippi State University.

Education Realty offers equity finance to its partner universities through its On-Campus Equity Plan — The ONE PlanSM. This plan funds projects on university land and gives the partner university access to a single trusted partner.

Per the company, this project is an “excellent candidate” to be financed through the One Plan equity financing.

Education Realty is one of the nation's largest developers, owners and managers of student housing communities while the Mississippi State University is one of the top universities in the south.

The development is conditioned upon the company’s final negotiation of definitive agreements with the university.

Shares of the company have lost 10.8% year to date while the industry gained 4.9%.

Education Realty currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Stocks to Consider

Investors can consider better-ranked stocks in the REIT space like National Health Investors, Inc. (NYSE:NHI) , PS Business Parks, Inc. (NYSE:PSB) and Communications Sales & Leasing, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) . All these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

While National Health Investors and PS Business Parks have long-term growth rate of 3.8% and 5%, respectively, Communications Sales & Leasing has an expected long-term growth rate of 7.5%.

Note: All EPS numbers presented in this write up represent funds from operations (“FFO”) per share. FFO, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income.

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Education Realty Trust Inc. (EDR): Free Stock Analysis Report

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