For some Queen’s students, off-campus living no longer smells like spilled drinks, moldy appliances, and damp basements. Instead, it hums softly, with elevators gliding between floors, doors clicking shut with key fobs, a concierge nodding hello behind a polished front desk.
In Kingston, where rent ranks among the highest in Canada, choosing a high-rise apartment might seem like an unlikely rite of passage for students. Single-unit apartments come with higher price tags and fewer housemates, yet they continue to draw a steady stream of undergraduates away from the chaos of student housing. To understand why, The Journal spoke with five Queen’s students who traded crowded living rooms and party-packed streets for quiet hallways and skyline views.
For Tofunmi Onigbogi, Sci ’28, apartment living wasn’t a later upgrade—it was his introduction to university life. While many first-years were squeezing into residence buildings and second-years learning the rhythms of student neighbourhoods, Onigbogi was unpacking his life into a high-rise building on Princess St.
An international student from Nigeria, Onigbogi arrived in Kingston later than planned after delays with his visa. With classes already underway and limited housing options left, he met with an off-campus living advisor who sent him a short list of available rentals across the city. Convenience quickly became the deciding factor. Unity Place offered immediate move-in, and for a student still finding his footing in a new country, that certainty mattered.
Living alone, Onigbogi said, has quietly reshaped his academic routine. Without roommates moving through the apartment in the morning, no alarms ringing through the walls, no footsteps in the hallway, there’s less urgency to start the day early. “If I was living with other people, I’d probably be more incentivized to wake up earlier,” he said in an interview with The Journal.
Dorm life had been his original plan. When he was preparing to come to Queen’s, he imagined a shared space, built-in community, and the steady rhythm of residence life. But when a dorm room never materialized, an apartment felt like the closest alternative.
Now, Onigbogi occupies a three-bedroom unit in Unity alone. His initial roommates were unable to secure visas in time, leaving him with extra bedrooms, and an unexpected kind of quiet.
For prospective student renters, popular options based on proximity to campus include Unity Place, Unity Point, and GeoCentral, all three these high-rises are owned by Peakmade, an Atlanta-based real estate real estate company based out of Atlanta, Georgia. As of January 2026, Peakmade controls more than 43,000 student housing units across the United States and six in Canada, five of which are located in Kingston.
Another prominent option’s Foundry Princess, one of seven “Foundry” properties operated by Toronto-based Integris Student Living, whose portfolio spans Ontario and includes additional developments in Kingston, such as Foundry Mack.
Named the “best city to Canada to live in as a student” in 2023 with a nearly 17 per cent student population, Kingston faces a high demand for rental housing near campus. But this demand has also entrenched a rental market long associated with scarce supply and landlords whose practices students have repeatedly described as difficult, and at times, exploitative.
According to Afra Kabeer, ArtSci ’28, the appeal of student housing was simple: it’s close to campus. Still, she told The Journal that convenience comes at a cost. Each month, she pays what feels like a premium price for comparatively little, especially when stacked against nearby condos, where renters get more “bang for their buck.”
For Saachi Jain, HealthSci ’28, and Mehta Hussain, CompSci ’28, apartment living made sense for a different reason. Both said they were drawn to the built-in structure of student-oriented buildings; an environment that mirrors residence life without its constraints.
They said this structure helps eliminate many of the uncertainties and logistical hurdles that often define off-campus living, particularly when it comes to navigating landlord relationships. “[I really like] organization and structure, so the structure of an apartment [building] makes me feel like I’m at home mentally; there’s a front desk if I have an issue so I don’t have to jump through hoops to contact a landlord,” Hussain said in an interview with The Journal.
That sense of ease extends beyond management and into the rhythms of their daily lives.
The two share a two bed-two bath in Unity Place and enjoy the building’s proximity to Kingston’s downtown core, living above retail spots like Insomnia Cookies and Kinton Ramen and being a ten minute walk away from the Athletics Recreation Centre (ARC).
Beyond convenience, safety was another key factor in their decision.
“There’s so many fobs to get upstairs, it makes the place feel a lot safer. Any time there’s a maintenance issue, there’s a clear process to go through everything. I’ve lived in apartments before and prefer them,” Jain said.
Kabeer told The Journal that safety has weighed heavily on mind since a distressing incident in the early hours of Jan. 20. Living with four other second-year girls, Kabeer was jolted awake at midnight by loud, persistent knocking at the door. Assuming it was one of her housemates, she got up to answer—only to be met instead by screaming from the other side. Shaken, Kabeer called 9-1-1. The operator remained on the line with her as she waited, frightened, for help to arrive.
Police later told her the disturbance involved a person experiencing significant impairment and substance use. Officers were ultimately able to de-escalate the situation, but the incident left a lasting impression.
“That was definitely very scary and is something that wouldn’t happen in a condo. This is one of the reasons why I want to move next year; I’m glad I had the student housing experience, but after that incident, that’s something I’m rethinking,” she said.
For other students, considerations around housing extend beyond immediate safety concerns. Familiarity, routine, and a sense of continuity also shape where, and how, they choose to live.
Apartment living feels less like a choice and more like a return for Hussain. She grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city shaped by density and vertical life, where apartments, not houses, are the norm. “Dhaka is a really crowded city, so very few people live in houses, and I’ve lived in an apartment my whole life; it’s what I’m familiar with,” she said.
Yet, the transformation of historically low-rise neighbourhoods into sleek high-rises has sparked concern for students, with Hussain arguing it it tears away at the city’s urban fabric and the quintessential student experience. Some students describe a sense of isolation, missing the energy and spontaneity that once defined on-campus living.
Hussain, for instance, admits to missing house parties, pointing out that “it’s not the same to party in apartments.” At Queen’s—repeatedly ranked among Canada’s top party schools— this is no small detail. For Kabeer, the rowdy house parties of Homecoming weekend stand out as some of her most cherished memories from student housing, a reminder that student life is as much about community and shared experiences as it is about a place to sleep.
“I live right in front of the street where all the street parties happen, so my roommate and I all have breakfast together, and have people over, and it’s a really fun vibe because all of our neighbours are doing the same thing, people are outside, and the vibes are just really good overall,” Kabeer said.
Students living in condos also mentioned missing the proximity to campus, with some telling The Journal that being farther away has made it harder to stay motivated to study, showing how location subtly shapes daily student life.
Jain noted that she doesn’t bump into her HealthSci peers as often, since she’s not on campus with them as much—a sentiment echoed by other students. Henna Porecha, ArtSci ’28, who shares a four-bedroom at Foundry Princess with three roommates, feels the same way, sensing that the distance from campus subtly thins the threads of everyday connection.
“I live 20 minutes from Stauffer, and I don’t end up studying as much when I’m not in the library, so if I can’t go to the library because of [the weather] I don’t end up getting much done,” Porecha said in an interview with The Journal.
Though a bit removed from the typical student housing hub, Porecha appreciated the perks of being near shops and services that usually require a bus ride, all while staying within walking distance of campus. Yet it wasn’t the convenience that sealed the deal—it was the desire to dodge the infamous student housing nightmares.
“I didn’t want to live in the student [district]. I’d a friend tell me they had rats in their place and that made me decide I don’t want to live there,” Porecha said. The issue isn’t unique to her—there’s even a Reddit thread dedicated to supporting Kingston tenants living downtown who have to deal with rat infestations.
Regarding pest issues, Kabeer noted that last weekend’s incident is not her only concern with student housing. She told The Journal that her residence, which she didn’t specify the name of, has ongoing problems with centipedes, which she described as “disgusting” and “scary.”
The housing horror stories shared by upper-year students on campus and online also helped to deter Amena Mirza, HeathSci ’27, from student-housing—now currently a resident at GeoCentral. “I feel like I miss out on living with multiple people and feeling like a family, experiencing different stories on the daily,” Mirza said in an interview with The Journal. “But I’ve heard so many horror stories about those situations too, so I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.”
Her experience at GeoCentral, however, highlighted one of the trade-offs of student housing: the sense of community she remembered from residence isn’t as readily available.
“When I first arrived, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is just like living in residence, since I lived at Smith [David C. Smith House],’” Mirza said. “But you’re not surrounded by other students the way you would be in a dorm, and that can feel lonely.”
Her sense of isolation is heightened by GeoCentral’s distance from campus, which makes even short trips feel longer—especially in winter—echoing other students’ concerns about losing touch with student life when living off-campus.
While distance and isolation are common challenges for off-campus students, many still choose high-rise apartments for the practical benefits they offer.
For Mirza, Porecha, Jain, Hussain, and Onigbogi, moving into the high-rise apartments on Princess Street was a practical choice, offering the convenience and structure that campus-adjacent living often lacks. Yet these buildings come with a trade-off: being farther from campus can make them less social, leaving some students feeling disconnected from student life.
Whether they choose to live in a high-rise or in a student house comes down to personal preference. For many students , moving into apartments is due to a desire for stability that’s becoming harder to find in a housing market that’s increasingly expensive and competitive.
Tags
apartments, housing, Student Housing
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Anon Student
Alongside this, a lot of lower-income students are being pushed away altogether, further than the apartments built on Princess St. It’s a process of studentification and the only solution is for Queen’s to build medium/high-density non-market rental housing for upper-year students.