Students appreciate downtown lofts as unique living experience

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Plymouth senior Tanya Moutzalias knows living in downtown Mount Pleasant is not perfect.

Her loft near Michigan Street and University Street may not provide all the desired amenities or the coolest summers, and bar patrons rarely keep noise down at late hours of the night.

But Moutzalias, for the second year in a row, would not choose to live anywhere else.

“The place just has character and that’s what I love about it,” Moutzalias said.

Moutzalias is one student living above a storefront in a downtown Mount Pleasant loft. Many of the lofts feature unique entrances, high ceilings to accommodate multiple floors and interesting window views of the downtown area.

“It’s an interesting place to live,” Moutzalias said. “Once people get a place downtown, they tend to stay in it.”

Students looking to live downtown may argue the hardest part is first finding an available one.

Warren senior Dave Lafata lives in a downtown loft off Main Street for the second year in a row, after finding the landlord through communication with previous tenants. Lafata believes the city atmosphere and downtown view from the windows make the location much more exciting.

He said he typically sees older students living in the lofts, citing the close proximity to the bars as one of the biggest perks for many students.

“I like the loft feel rather than a normal house,” Lafata said. “It’s a great change of pace from living close to campus.”

With the exception of the constant noise and lack of air-conditioning in the summer, Lafata said his downtown home is great.

“The heat in the summer is unbearable sometimes,” Lafata said. “You couldn’t even go up to the third floor.”

Walled Lake senior Sean Armstrong, a neighbor of Lafata’s, said he also really enjoys the unique feel of the lofts. Armstrong said the worst part is being without a washing machine, but he would much rather live downtown than in a messy student house.

“The coolest part is being outside of the usual college house environment,” Armstrong said. “It’s different than any other place you could live in at Central.”