Dear incoming Duke Law students,
I'm sure our administration has been doing a great job answering your questions and helping you make the right Law School choice (Duke!). To help out, some of us in the first year class at Duke Law thought we'd offer you some housing information from a student perspective. I put together this list of some of the apartment complexes down here with student/tenant contacts for each. Each of these students said they'd be happy to answer questions and will likely write a general response for your general inquiries concerning housing. THIS LIST IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF HOUSING OPTIONS NOR IS IT AN ENDORSEMENT OF ANY PARTICULAR OPTION.
Housing options include apartment complexes, buying a house, renting a house, renting a room, etc. This email has info on apartment complexes and some hyperlinks to other resources:
APARTMENT COMPLEXES: Durham and Chapel Hill have a large number of apartment complexes with a broad range of rent levels and amenities. They are usually a cluster of small buildings with several apartments in each building while others are one large apartment building. Many of them have pools, fitness centers (gyms), tennis courts, business centers, outdoor grilling areas with picnic benches and other options. Some have fancier features like ponds, hot tubs, movie theaters, garages, gardens, and some are gated. Distances from the different apartment complexes and Duke Law vary widely- some are within walking distance of the Law School while others require a bit of a drive. Keep in mind that Duke is a pretty big campus and if a complex says it's within walking distance of Duke they may referring to areas other than West Campus, where the Law School is located.
Map of Duke University campus: http://map.duke.edu/index.asp?qtype=1
Map of the Science Drive area of campus, including the Law School: http://map.duke.edu/CampusDetail.asp?mapid=34&bldg=306&qtype=1
Durham Chamber of Commerce (with great maps): http://www.durham-nc.com/
Most apartment complexes have a fairly diverse group of tenants in terms of profession or other reason for being in Durham. Therefore, apartments usually become available throughout the year, rather than there being a major rush for student tenants at any particular time of the year. Many of these apartments can be rented for nine or 12-month periods (or other lease lengths)- so with a nine-month lease you don't necessarily have to sublet in the summer when the housing demand among students is down. However, leases shorter than 12 months usually entail a higher monthly rent. Some of these complexes also have lease-signing incentives, including a month or two free-rent. Many of them do not require law students to put down a security deposit. The complexes vary in terms of what utilities are covered- you may want to ask about this when thinking about total cost.
Again, this isn't a complete list of all the apartment complex options in the area- it's really just a list of all the complexes about which 1L's have volunteered to make comments. This also isn't
any kind of endorsement for any of these places. It is definitely a good idea to email the contacts listed here and do other research. I just went to Yahoo yellow pages, entered my zip (27705) and
typed in "apartments", which brought up a long list of phone numbers. Also, here are two apartment seeker's websites that might help- they have photos and floor plans of some options: www.aptbook.com or www.caraptloc.com
Here's the list: along with some students who said they would be happy to answer questions about their apartments. They are all first-year students.
-Alexan Farms: Dawn.Murphy@law.duke.edu
-Archstone Apartments: Emily.Ratte@law.duke.edu
-Beech Lake: Clifford.Jenks@law.duke.edu
-Bridgefield Apartments: Anthony.Newman@law.duke.edu
-Deerfield Apartments: Christopher.Mills@law.duke.edu
-Duke Manor: Theodore.Sheffield@law.duke.edu
-Pinnacle Ridge: Bryan.Wilson@law.duke.edu
-South Point Apartments: Campbell.Chiang@law.duke.edu
-The Belmont: Graham.Chynoweth@law.duke.edu
-The Forest Apartments (Their website: www.korman1.com ): Peter.Reaves@law.duke.edu or Nicholas.Holland@law.duke.edu
-West Village: Mitchell.Sprengelmeyer@law.duke.edu
Links:
To see what some other students have said about certain apartment complexes, visit the Housing Web Board at www.law.duke.edu/webboard/students.html
The business school here has a website for incoming international students with general information on Durham: http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/stuserv/international/locinfo.htm
We hope to see you in the fall!
-Peter Reaves
Peter.Reaves@law.duke.edu
Class of 2004