Nestled adjacent to Southwest Recreation Center and the Florida Museum of Natural History, Maguire Village and University Village South were once bustling living spaces, acting as a cultural haven for graduate students and their families.
But after the university announced plans to demolish the complexes in 2020, it stopped allowing residents to renew their two-year leases. By summer 2023, the communities were completely deserted.
Building entrances are now boarded up and apartment windows are without panes. Playgrounds stand derelict with swingless swing sets and sun-bleached slides, once painted in bold shades of orange and blue. Yellowed pandemic-era advisories and event fliers cling to some of the units’ walls — including one for a 2022 party at Maguire’s pool, now steeped in murky green water.
The university said Maguire and UVS — constructed in the early 1970s — were too old and would cost an estimated $35 million to renovate. After delays and years of protests from graduate students, the UF Board of Trustees recently approved a $10.1 million plan to demolish the complexes by the end of 2025.
As on-campus housing shrinks and the demolitions loom, graduate students are sounding alarm bells over what they see as an affordable housing crisis. And a small batch of activists are making one final push to save Maguire and UVS.
“It was a place where people lived and had events and built community and trust,” said Derek LaMontagne, a 39-year-old chemistry graduate student and president of the Mayor’s Council, a group representing graduate students who live on campus. “It’s just going to be lost.”
Advocacy efforts
LaMontagne, a former Maguire resident, spearheaded advocacy efforts. Since December, he’s advocated for a pause on the plans at public comment sessions during meetings with the UF Faculty Senate and Alachua County Commission.
He created a Change.org petition, which has over 1,600 signatures, in 2021 to help save the complex from demolition. He is also one of the organizers of a coalition launched in 2022 to save the complex.
“All we're asking is a pause to the demolition,” LaMontagne told county commissioners at a Jan. 14 meeting. “That's one of the only cards we have left.”
The complexes were scheduled to be knocked down in summer 2024, but it had been delayed.
LaMontagne said the university’s reasoning for destroying Maguire and UVS is “misleading” and “disrespectful” of the units’ affordability and cultural value.
Student Sen. Max Banach, a 21-year-old electrical engineering and economics senior (Change-Engineering) surveyed the property and observed demolition preparations, such as the boarded-up second floor entry walkways. Banach looked through some windows into units, taking note of the clean carpets and standard appliances. “By and large, they look livable to me,” he said.
The UF Student Senate has passed two resolutions against the demolition of Maguire and UVS in 2021 and 2023. Banach co-authored a 2025 resolution, which is in the works. However, UF Student Body President John Brinkman voted alongside the UF Board of Trustees to approve funding for the demolition.
"I think that's quite frankly the sickest thing out of it,” Banach said. “If we even want to care about graduate students, then the first project in that 10-year implementation strategy ought to be new graduate and family housing facilities on campus."
Graduate housing issues
The demolitions, first announced in 2020, will result in the destruction of 44 brick buildings that once housed 348 apartments.
The closures dropped the total graduate on-campus bed count for graduate students by 36% to under 1,000 beds total.
According to the university, nearly two-thirds of the roughly 15,000 graduate students currently enrolled at UF are on a two- to three-year waitlist to receive lease offers for the remaining on-campus graduate housing units — Corry Village, Tanglewood Village and Diamond Village.
Even before the demolitions, UF graduate students had fewer on-campus housing options than undergraduates. For the Fall 2019 semester, there were four undergraduates per one on-campus bed but about 11 graduates per bed in graduate housing.
With minimum graduate stipends starting at $19,200, paying rent can quickly eat away at annual salaries.
Cassie Urbenz, a 24-year-old graphic design and visual communications student and the Graduate Assistants United president, cited a 2021 GAU survey that found that 20% of UF graduate respondents were unable to pay for rent due to money shortages.
With those money shortages comes, “A lot of international students getting roped into really expensive leases,” Urbenz said. Graduate students are not paid enough to afford off-campus housing, Urbenz added.
To resolve the shortage of available space on campus, UF has turned to private-public partnerships with local off-campus apartments to remedy the affordable housing shortage for graduate students. However, residents say rent for the only off-campus graduate housing apartment, The Continuum, is too high compared to on-campus options and the living conditions are poor.
“The Continuum has been a disaster,” Urbenz said. “Their maintenance has been pretty bad.”
Rent at the Continuum’s less expensive units is about one-third higher than on-campus options. The gap climbs to over 50% among pricier apartments, with on-campus costs topping out at $1,000 while the Continuum goes up to $1,500. Although The Continuum is still cheaper than the average Gainesville apartment, on-campus rents remain a much cheaper option.
Josh Brawn, a 32-year-old UF faculty member and organizer of The Continuum’s tenant union, has been a resident for more than a year. When Brawn first moved in more than a year ago, he said his original unit’s metal light fixtures were covered in rust. Residents have also complained about mold around the property, he said, and broken windows have gone unfixed for months.
Future graduate housing plans — or lack thereof
In the five years since the demolition was first announced, the university hasn’t made it clear what the space once occupied by Maguire and UVS residents will be used for. Nor has it announced plans to build on-campus housing replacements for graduate students.
Potential future uses of the space range from “housing to dining to parking and transportation,” according to UF Housing & Residence Life.
Kevin Senior, a 26-year-old graduate research assistant and president of the Graduate Student Council, said it’s “an insult” to graduate students that there are no definite plans for additional on-campus graduate housing. Senior is a member of a graduate housing student subcommittee, which aims to look for future graduate housing.
Despite his efforts, Senior said he fears poor graduate student housing conditions and the destruction of Maguire and UVS are inevitable.
“[Maguire and UVS] are going to be taken down. It’s just a matter of time,” he said.
UF didn’t respond in time for publication.
Contact Shaine Davison at sdavison@alligator.org. Follow her on X @shainedavison.
