Plans have fallen through for the development of 15 to 16 single-family town homes because of lack of student interest and its distance from campus.

The project, known as “Illini Village,” consisted of Chicago-style row houses or townhouses would be located at Green and Randolph streets. Each unit is comprised of eight bedrooms. Illini Village was expected to take six months to complete and cost $6.5 million.

“It would have been beautiful,” said William Kohlsaat, partner in RWD Campus Developments LLC, and head of the project. “It was clear to us that it wasn’t going to be a successful project. Location seemed to be the pitfall.”

The development company could not generate enough interest among students for this type of housing, Kohlsaat said. He added that he blames its far location from campus for the lack of enthusiasm.

“My thought was that eight bedroom houses might do well on First and Armory,” said Esther Patt, coordinator of the tenant union. “It’s hard to even rent four bedrooms to students at that location.”

Patt said developers not from the area often think that students at the University live farther off campus than they actually do.

“These guys just didn’t understand our student populations and their perception of distance from campus,” she added. She also mentioned that graduate and professional students would want to live farther away from Campustown than undergraduates.

“The bottom line is that anyone could not have been successful renting eight bedroom houses unless it was very close to campus,” she said.

Ben Rodrigues, junior in LAS, said he does not know where he is living next academic year but wants to live within a mile radius of the Quad. He said that the proposed location of Illini Village would have be too far from the heart of campus to be considered as a possible housing option.

The project was meant to be designed in a horizontal fashion that contrasts the usual vertical landscape layout of apartments on campus, Kohlsaat said. He said development companies must build vertically to utilize real estate, and that it is more expensive to build horizontally.

Building horizontally has other advantages over vertical high rises, he added.

“You get a better sense of community,” Kohlsaat said.

RWD just finished 10 of these town houses at Notre Dame University on Aug. 1.

“Eighty percent of students at Notre Dame live in university housing so there is probably a greater demand for off-campus housing there than here,” Patt said.

At the start of the plan for Illini Village, RWD teamed up with Ramshaw Real Estate to aid in marketing the project on campus. Todd Lienhart, vice president and property manager at Ramshaw, said in an e-mail that he could not comment about why the project was halted.

Kohlsaat said that RWD is looking at future housing projects at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Michigan. Additional development at Notre Dame and smaller colleges in Indiana are also possibilities, though he added he would not rule out trying to build at the University again.

“We would always consider Illinois,” Kohlsaat said. “I was very disappointed and very surprised. I thought it (Illini Village) was a fantastic addition for the University–to give students something safe, secure, and beautiful to live in.”