A room with a view and little else: budget minded nonprofit groups can benefit from using the University of Alaska Anchorage student housing for summertime stays.

• Author: Campbell, Melissa

Richard Stouff knew that part of his job would include finding reasonably priced accommodations for more than 200 ardent flyers when he organized last year's International Short Wing Piper Club's convention.

He had a couple of major challenges: The folks in the nonprofit Piper Club like to put their money into their planes, not necessarily toward a place to sleep for a night. And the convention was set for June, when Anchorage hotels tend to be packed with full-fare-paying tourists.

Even working months in advance, Stouff had trouble finding enough rooms under one roof to hold the whole group. That added a logistical wrinkle to planning convention events. He also had to think about meeting rooms, equipment, catering and ensuring everyone could find event locations.

Just when he was about to throw his hands up and hand convention attendees a bus schedule and a map, Stouff thought of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

After all, the local university in Oshkosh, Wis., rents its dorms to people attending another aviation convention there every year. Why wouldn't UAA do the same? And the campus has various-sized classrooms, dining facilities and a catering service.

It was a life-saving revelation, Stouff said. The university had everything Piper Club convention-goers could possibly need-cheap beds, lots of food and rooms to hold meetings. What more could the aviation enthusiast ask for? How about a university-catered hanger party situated right off the Merrill Field runway, an event to greet conventioneers as they flew into town.

"It was an ideal situation for us," Stouff said. "We were at the end of the runway, with planes coming left and right, eating and drinking at a banquet. We even ran out of food and the caterers went and got more."

AMIABLE AMENITIES

The University of Alaska Anchorage opens its residential student housing to groups like Stouff's every summer. The 950 beds in the various housing facilities are full of students most of the year. But after the last final exam of the spring semester, most of those students head home for the summer, leaving vacant a vastly untapped resource ripe for slumber-seekers.

And at $45 a night per person, the dorms are a bargain compared to summer rates in town. Example, a deluxe double room at the Captain Cook Hotel is about $240 a night, while the more modest Puffin Inn charges $189. At the lower end of the scale, the Mush Inn Hotel runs about $75 a night for double occupancy. For a grand total, add...