The students gathered Monday at the Hamilton building, now renamed Third + Dayton for an intersection where it is located. They were surprised by the spacious rooms with large suites where they will be living, they said.
“It’s really good here,” Jiaxian Lin, who goes by Lucas, said about the large, impressively built accommodations. “It’s very worth it to pay the money.”
Lin, 21, is from the Chinese port city of Shenzhen, which has a population of about 12.5 million and is near Hong Kong. He has been in the United States for three years, attended high school in Michigan and plans to study business administration after going through an English-immersion program at Miami’s Hamilton campus. Ultimately, he plans to return to China.
He said he could have attended Michigan State University, where many of his friends from high school were going, but chose Miami “because I wanted to meet some new people. You know, it’s a little bit boring if the people around you are always the same.”
The building’s seventh floor has 16 two-bedroom apartments, each bedroom with two beds in it, as requested by Quest Holding International, the Chinese firm that houses the students, as it has done for years at Miami’s Middletown campus.
“The people here are very similar to the people in Michigan — friendly,” Lin said. “And the weather here is also very similar to Michigan.”
“They came up the elevator and they were really excited,” Justin Lichter, vice president of IRG (Industrial Realty Group LLC, based in Los Angeles) said.
By Miami’s second semester, the number of students should increase to 64.
Jerry Martin Jr., regional director for Miami’s regional campuses global programs, said the international students will not only perfect their English through an intensive program, but also will prepare them academically and help their social skills for living on an American college campus.
“We’re just very excited about this project,” Martin said. With the language skills, “they come to us I think each year more and more prepared already, but coming to a school like Miami University, the university life is a bit shocking for international students.”
“We offer a complete support service, academic support services,” he said. “We have a most wonderful Chinese partner (Quest), and we’re excited about this.”
Miami had been discussing the expansion to the Hamilton campus for five years, he said. Martin said he also was amazed by the transformation of the Ohio Casualty building, which was empty, into housing that looks new.
In another project at Third + Dayton, former Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown’s Amer-I-Can and Miami’s Work + program will be housing students on the sixth floor.
The Third + Dayton complex, which has more than one building, is available for lease on its lower floors. Apartments on the eighth floor will be available to the general public.
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