A four-story apartment building about a mile from Cal Poly Pomona has added 636 beds for students, along with amenities such as a fitness center and a shuttle service.
The building was bought in June by Cal Poly Pomona Enterprise, a nonprofit organization that supports the university and runs additional housing, the bookstore and dining services. The goal is to address the shortage of beds for students.
In 2023, an assessment by the organization found that the university was short 1,761 beds.
“Both the campus housing and Enterprise housing had long wait lists of students who are seeking housing,” said David Laxamana, director of Student Housing for Cal Poly Pomona Enterprise.
The housing study found that the demand for housing exceeded what the university could offer, Laxamana said. Recognizing that need, the group began negotiations in December 2024 and finalized the purchase for the building off Corporate Center Drive in June for $126 million.
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Cal Poly Pomona student Noah Sanchez, 21, a resident at The Current, uses a common area to study Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. The Current, a 177-unit, 636-bed community, is near the campus. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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Cal Poly Pomona student Noah Sanchez, 21, a resident at The Current, uses a common area to study Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. The Current, a 177-unit, 636-bed community, is near the campus. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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The Current is a 252,000-square-foot, four-story apartment building with fully furnished apartments ranging from studios to five-bedrooms. It was built in 2024.
Staffed by 10 resident assistants, four professional employees, graduate assistants and student assistants, the building offers students the experience of living in their own apartment while bringing in the community aspect of dormitory living through programs, events and a vending machine hub called the Grub and Go.
Ki’ilani Versoza, a junior who’s from San Francisco, said she doesn’t have a lot of options for housing, but living in the building gives her the feel of having her own apartment while still being near school.
“I think my favorite thing is probably, like, having everything like close to me,” Versoza said.
She and her roommate have a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, and an electric stove — all in their apartment. That’s something most dorms don’t have or, if they do, its in a place shared with over 100 other students, she said.
Before buying the building, the nonprofit group and the university had housing on or near campus for 4,000 students, which includes the university’s two newest residence halls that opened in 2020.
“I was in, some people call them the red-brick dorms on campus at Cal Poly Pomona, and they must have been built a long time ago,” junior Miles Bayley said.
He and his roommate met at the dorms and lived there for a year before moving to the new building.
“This is much better than that because, I mean, there’s a full kitchen and a common space. The amenities are just great here, too, like there’s a pool, 24-hour gym,” Bayley said. “… That’s, like, a big improvement overall.”
The clubhouse with a game room, fitness center, study lounge, private study rooms, swimming pool and two enclosed courtyards, are a selling point for Bayley. But his favorite service is a shuttle that runs from the building to campus.
“That’s probably the most-used feature of the entire building that at least me and my roommates use because, like, I don’t have to drive and find parking,” Bayley said. “… It’s just so useful and going back and forth only takes like 10 to 15 minutes.”
Student housing at The Current opened in May 2024 and the building quickly hit capacity, with a long waitlist after opening.
The building opened with some hiccups under the previous management. A December 2024 article from the student newspaper, The Poly Post, reported that residents complained of overflowing trash bins, issues with staff and pool maintenance issues.
Versoza, who works for the apartment building, said the nonprofit organization has addressed many of the issues.
“I know with the trash we were able to fix that by having a trash service for it,” she said.
The service allowed students to put trash outside their door for staff to pick up at night, which helped with the overflow, she said.
Having staff available to answer questions and help with issues has made a huge difference, as has having managers there during the week, she said.
The building is 89% Cal Poly Pomona students. Another 11% of residents are students from surrounding schools or non-students.
A majority of the other residents are from surrounding colleges such as Mt. San Antonio College and Western University, Laxamana said.
Current leases in the building run through July 2026, Laxamana said. After that, new lease agreements will require residents to be Cal Poly students.
