The Oasis Apartments are about to dry up.
For about $5.5 million, ASU officials want to purchase a 2.74-acre plot of land near the intersection of McAllister Avenue and Apache Boulevard from Warren Properties, Inc.
The property includes the roughly 30-year-old Oasis Apartments and a building that houses the Axis Sports retail store.
The space will be used to build more residence hall rooms, and the Arizona Board of Regents will vote on the purchase at its meeting Friday at UA, said Mernoy Harrison, downtown Phoenix campus provost and ASU acting chief financial officer.
"[ASU] would purchase the property and lease it to a developer, who would probably demolish it to build [the dorms]," Harisson said.
ASU isn't buying the property because the apartment complex isn't profitable, said Richard Colbourne, general manager of Warren Properties, Inc., a company based in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
"The University has had their eye on the property for some time," Colbourne said. "The University surrounds the property, and I think it would be best if [ASU] took it over."
Colbourne said Frank Warren, owner of the company, has had discussions with ASU officials about the space for a couple of years.
"I think it's a very favorable move for everybody concerned," Colbourne said.
The property would become part of the South Campus Academic Village, a portion of ASU's master plan that was incorporated into ASU's Capital Development Plan at the regents' January meeting.
ASU's master plan calls for 1,700 additional residence hall bed spaces, some of which would be built in the current Oasis Apartments space, Harrison said.
Purchase of the land will be financed through the sale of tax-exempt bonds.
Axis Sports, a sporting goods store in front of the complex, will change landlords from Warren Properties, Inc., to ASU if the deal is approved, Harrison said.
However, the store's operations would not change, even if the Oasis Apartments were demolished.
Axis Sports owner Gary Colby, an ASU alumnus, said he was looking forward to seeing Oasis replaced by students.
"Having a dorm instead of those apartments will make a big difference," Colby said. "The demographic that lives in the Oasis is not our target customer."
Colby said young college students provide 90 percent of his business, but the people who currently live in Oasis are older and have lower incomes.
Undeclared sophomore Heather Miller, a resident of the nearby Adelphi Commons sorority residence hall, said she doesn't like to walk past Oasis after 7 p.m. because she doesn't feel secure.
Miller said she thinks the property should go to ASU.
"It's just a random apartment in the middle of students, and I think it should be all students," Miller said. "I think it would be a good thing if [Oasis] got bought out."
Oasis resident Jonathan Bagby, who said he was moving out of his apartment at the Oasis on Wednesday after being evicted, said he doesn't like the idea of ASU making the property into a dorm because his brother and some of his friends live there.
"You've got people that have lived here for a long time," he said.
Harrison said he didn't know when construction would begin on a new complex or if it would need to be demolished.
New dorms on the Oasis property likely wouldn't open until 2007, Harrison said.
Reach the reporter at nicole.saidi@asu.edu.
