Affiliated Corporations for Student Residence Halls

Under New York law community colleges may not own and operate dormitories. Consequently, corporate entities separate from the colleges must own and operate dormitories for community college students. Such separate entities may be affiliated with a college, however, and exist solely for the purpose of owning and operating dormitory or other auxiliary facilities for the benefit of one college.

FIT’s first affiliated housing corporation, the F.I.T. Dormitory Corporation, was established by FIT and incorporated in January 1959. FIT’s first dormitory, Nagler Hall, named for Isidore Nagler, an FIT trustee and vice president of the ILGWU, opened in Fall 1962.

In December 1972, FIT established a second affiliated housing corporation, F.I.T. Staff Housing Co., Inc. (“Staff Housing”), in order to take advantage of low-cost Mitchell-Lama Program funding to build a second dormitory. Under the law, Mitchell-Lama mortgage funding would not be available unless the project being financed was owned by a separate corporation created expressly for the purpose of participating in the Mitchell-Lama Program. Staff Housing successfully built and opened Co-ed Hall in 1975.

Yet a third affiliated housing corporation was established by FIT in March 1982: the F.I.T. Student Housing Corporation. Not long thereafter, the original F.I.T. Dormitory Corporation was merged into Student Housing. In 1988, Student Housing opened FIT’s third residence, Alumni Hall. These three contiguous dormitories are located on the south side of 27th Street, directly across from the campus academic and administrative complex.

The fourth FIT dormitory, also owned by Student Housing, is Kaufman Hall, named for trustee George S. Kaufman and Mariana Kaufman, and opened in 2006. It is located at 406 W. 31st St. (between 9th and 10th Avenues), just blocks from the main campus.

In all, the four dormitories house 2300 students and Alumni Hall includes an apartment for FIT’s president.

Both Staff Housing and Student Housing were established by FIT for the sole purpose of providing residence and related facilities for the use of FIT students and staff. Accordingly, FIT’s trustees and officers also serve as the directors and officers of the affiliated housing corporations. In May 2012, Staff Housing began the process of shedding its status as a Mitchell-Lama project (its mortgage having been paid in full), with the intent of dissolving the corporation and transferring all of its assets and liabilities to Student Housing, thus streamlining the administration of FIT’s residence halls by bringing them all under the aegis of one affiliated housing corporation.