Purdue president discusses housing, LEAP pipeline ahead of fall semester

Purdue University President Mung Chiang emphasized the school’s commitment to provide more housing to students in a media briefing given before his first full academic year as the school's leader.

Local officials have repeatedly raised concerns about how growing Purdue enrollment has impacted the region's housing market.

Last year, a rental housing report found zero percent vacancies in much of Greater Lafayette’s downtown area — largely driven by the increase in Purdue’s student population.

Chiang said that two recently approved university housing projects would help address the problem. At the same time, he said residential undergraduate enrollment was “closing to a plateau.”

“In other words, housing availability will surpass enrollment,” he said.

The two new university residences are expected to bring roughly 1,900 new beds to Purdue’s campus but those projects are not expected to be completed until 2026.

Chiang also discussed concerns about massive water withdrawals from Tippecanoe County. State officials are studying plans to move millions of gallons of water from the county down to a growing industrial district in Lebanon.

But some local officials want guarantees that local water won’t be impacted – and worry about what withdrawals may mean for future industrial growth in the Greater Lafayette region.

Chiang, who has touted a “hard tech corridor” between West Lafayette and Indianapolis, said he’s confident the state will find a “win-win” solution.

“This corridor would not be viable if the bookend, West Lafayette Discovery Park District, cannot thrive,” he said. “The starting point is just to understand how much water there is.”

State officials have said studies into water availability for the pipeline could be available as early as the end of this summer.