When Ron Smith and his roommate Jason Olson are both at home in their two-bedroom apartment at Greenbriar Place in Glen Ellyn, each enjoys a level of privacy rarely experienced by roommates. That’s because they’re residents of what’s known as a “roommate split,” a distinctive type of apartment designed to give its residents an extra measure of private space.
“We like the fact that you have the privacy factor,” said Smith, 34, a human resource manager for a sporting-goods chain. “You have this big spread between the two bedrooms. When we’re home, we both do a lot of work on the phone. The other guy can play music, watch TV, entertain and yet you’re still pretty much isolated.”
Like other residents of roommate splits, Smith and Olson enjoy the best of both worlds. They can divide the rent and yet still savor much of the privacy of a one-bedroom unit.
Of course, the term “roommate split” is something of a misnomer, because those sharing an apartment aren’t roommates per se. Each has his own bedroom and full bathroom.
What sets a roommate split apart from other two-bedroom, two-bath apartments is that the bedrooms aren’t situated on either side of a common interior wall. In fact, they’re typically as far apart from one another as the apartment’s floor plan permits. The bedrooms and bathrooms are separated by common areas–living room, dining room, and sometimes foyer and kitchen. The absence of a common wall between bedrooms in his unit, said Smith, “was definitely a selling point. The common wall doesn’t give you the same (level of) privacy.”
In terms of cost, the split is perhaps the most attractive option for roommates, said Laura Weidner, senior consultant with RELCON Apartment Finders in Oak Brook. “The average roommate split goes for between $900 and $950, and you can’t get a one-bedroom at anywhere near the quality at half that price,” she noted. “I tell (would-be renters), `If you can get a roommate, you can have a better quality lifestyle and greater disposable income with a split.’ “
Roommate splits also save renters money in other ways, Weidner said. They tend to be offered in more upscale apartment communities that feature health clubs and in-unit washers and dryers. “So you also save on the cost of a health club and trips to the Laundromat,” she noted.
But most agree the best part of the roommate split is the opportunity to enjoy privacy other two-bedrooms don’t afford. That means not having to listen to a roommate’s music, TV or conversation through a common wall. “Basically, when you’re there together, you can live your own separate lives, because you have your own little wings,” reported Weidner.
Despite its relative commonness in the rental housing market, however, the concept of the roommate split is foreign to many if not most renters. “We see people who want to share an apartment, but they don’t necessarily understand the distinction between roommate splits and other two bedrooms,” said Abbey Schrager, marketing director with The Apartment People, a full-service rental agency that helps customers find and rent apartments.
Weidner reported she has had to explain the concept to many prospective renters. “But when I show them one, their eyes light up, and they say, `Show me more of those,’ ” she related.
Among communities that offer roommate splits, 9-year-old Greenbriar Place offers one of the highest ratios of splits (44) to total units (82). The units range in size from 980 to 1,100 square feet and cost $1,125 per month.
Four of the splits are penthouse units renting for $1,325. Split residents vary in age and circumstances, said property manager Nancy Mattick. “We have some younger professionals who come together and learn to be roommates, and like that style because it saves them money.
“In that style of apartment, we also have a parent and child, and we have (college) students.”
One of the newer Chicago-area communities offering roommate splits is High Point Community Apartments in Romeoville, which welcomed its first residents in July of this year. Of the 552 units the community will eventually offer, 180 are to be roommate splits.
High Point features two different split styles. Units in the first style, which general manager Tom Lowry calls “an interior unit,” measure 1,050 to 1,100 square feet and rent for $1,015 a month.
The second style is an “end unit” floor plan featuring a direct-vent gas log fireplace. Measuring 1,150 square feet, units in this style go for $1,095 a month.
“Roommates range from the 20-something crowd up to a little older people, including families,” said Lowry. “We also have seniors living with siblings or friends in these units.”
Roommate splits appeal to them, he added, for reasons of cost as well as privacy. “Many one-bedrooms in this area run $800 or more a month,” he reported. “You’ve got to make a lot of money to pay $900 to $1,000 a month, including utilities, for an apartment. It’s much more economical to pay $500 to $550 for a two-bedroom. Some may prefer living alone, but with a roommate split you’ve got both privacy and camaraderie.”
Roommate splits aren’t limited to buildings constructed in the last decade. Plenty of mature apartment communities offer the floor plan as well. For instance, at Versailles on the Lakes, a 25-year-old apartment community in Oakbrook Terrace, about 10 to 15 percent of the 688 apartments are roommate splits, said property manager Linda Allala.
“It’s a perfect floor plan for roommates,” she observed. “(The bedrooms) are very even in size; it’s not like one roommate is going to get a much larger bedroom than the other.”
Indeed, the bedrooms in the 1,018-square-foot splits measure 14 by 11 feet and 14 feet, 8 inches by 10 feet, 6 inches. An attached bathroom in one of the two is about the only major difference in the bedrooms.
The splits range in price from $1,140 to $1,180 per month, depending on the view.
They’re popular with young adults and families. “The bedrooms are each big enough for a couple of beds,” said Allala.
A third category of renters is empty nesters who transform one of the bedrooms into a family, guest or TV room.
Runaway Bay in Palatine is a 24-year-old community in which 25 of the 346 units are splits. They each measure 1,125 square feet and rent for $845 to $900 per month, depending on whether the units include the original kitchen cabinets or the upgraded Euro-style.
Single parents with one or two children, as well as young professional men, make up most of the residents of the splits, said manager Irene Howard. “The men really like the privacy factor,” she noted. “There’s a very large living room (separating the two bedrooms). And the master bedroom suite has a door that closes off the entire suite from the rest of the apartment.”
Among the most distinctive roommate splits in the Chicago area are those found at Asbury Plaza, a building that opened in 1981 on North Dearborn Street on Chicago’s Near North Side.
Unlike the square or rectangular shape of most other roommate split floor plans, Asbury Plaza’s are shaped like an elongated diamond, with the bedrooms at the outermost points. The 33-story building has 32 roommate splits, each measuring 1,050 square feet. Rents start at $1,500 and go up a few dollars a floor, topping off at $1,560.
According to property manager Barbara Stumfoll, the splits are favored by young professionals and law and medical school students. “They get complete privacy from one another,” she said. “And monetarily, it’s a big benefit for younger people. They pay $750 a month, as opposed to the $945 a month my convertibles rent for. At $750, you wouldn’t be able to live alone in a building with these amenities, in this area.”
Smith and Olson of Greenbriar Place are among those who wouldn’t think of trading their split for two one-bedroom units. Said Smith: “We thought about moving a couple of times. But we looked and looked and couldn’t find anything we liked nearly as much.”
