Housing and Residence Life has added the recently acquired Blue Light Living apartment complex and 301 Swift to Swift Quad ahead of upperclassmen housing selection for the fall 2025 semester.
The two complexes will join 300 Swift and the Smart Home in the University’s residential QuadEx system. While Duke students already reside in 301 Swift and Blue Light, they will be incorporated exclusively into the undergraduate housing system. According to Dean for Residence Life Deb LoBiondo, the move aims to “focus on the junior and senior experience,” while also maintaining upperclassmen’s connections to their previous residential communities.
HRL detailed its current estimates of housing costs for the 2025-26 academic year, with rates for students opting to live in an apartment with a private bedroom listed at $8,958 for the semester and $17,916 for the academic year and those in shared bedrooms at $7,206 and $14,412, respectively.
Throughout the 2024-25 academic year, both Blue Light and 301 Swift have housed a mix of undergraduate, graduate and professional students, according to a Monday email from Chris Rossi, associate vice president of student affairs for resource administration and planning. A number of the new undergraduate residents include those who studied abroad during the fall semester, as many graduate and professional students have recently transitioned to living in Lancaster Commons.
HRL has not yet described how the incorporation of Blue Light and 301 Swift into the residential system will contribute to Duke’s long-term goals of fostering social and residential community. QuadEx, now in its fourth year of implementation, has drawn mixed responses regarding the residential model’s promises of bringing together the “social, residential and intellectual lives” of students.
Blue Light Living, 301 Swift
Duke acquired Blue Light in January 2024, a move that came as a surprise to its residents. Since then, the University has been actively transitioning it into the student housing infrastructure, according to LoBiondo.
The University cited the expansion of housing capacities for both graduate and undergraduate students as the primary reason for its purchase.
Blue Light is located on Erwin Road and was incorporated into the 300 Swift bus route at the beginning of the academic year. The six-story apartment complex can house more than 200 residents in two- and three-bedroom apartments that will include a mix of single- and double-occupancy bedrooms. The apartment is popular among its residents for its furnished amenities, suite-style rooms and rooftop pool as well as its proximity to Ninth Street and Whole Foods.
All Blue Light bedrooms have been added to HRL’s housing inventory as part of the transition, LoBiondo wrote in an Oct. 17 email to The Chronicle. This transition also called for upgrades in facility amenities such as plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, elevator maintenance, security cameras and parking. To meet the infrastructure needs, HRL is working with Facilities Management, Parking and Transportation and Duke University Police Department.
Similar to other HRL living spaces, resident assistants were assigned to Blue Light during the fall 2024 semester.
The 46-bed community situated across 300 Swift, 301 Swift has housed graduate and professional students since fall 2019. The building includes fully furnished apartments featuring two bedrooms with single occupancy.
Looking back
In the past, some juniors and all seniors have had the option to reside in their assigned quad, move off campus and move to alternative on-campus housing options, such as Hollows, which offers suite-style living, or 300 Swift. Seniors also have the option to move off campus.
Though, this is not the first time the University has housed undergraduate students at both Blue Light and 301 Swift.
Duke previously placed students in the apartments in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, at the beginning of fall 2024, Duke Kunshan University students studying abroad in Durham moved in when Epworth Residence Hall closed due to a pipe burst.
Prior to fall 2019, 301 Swift was home to undergraduate fraternity sections for Sigma Nu and Kappa Alpha Order. However, in a move to provide housing for primarily international graduate and professional students, the two sections were relocated to 300 Swift and Craven Quad, respectively. In February 2021, the two fraternities, along with seven other fraternities, moved off campus after Duke introduced changes to the rush process and selective housing under the new residential QuadEx system.
Current Blue Light and 301 Swift residents will continue living in the apartments until their student leases expire by the end of the academic year, according to LoBiondo and Rossi.
Housing applications for the 2025-26 academic year open Tuesday and close Friday at 12 p.m.
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Lucas Lin is a Trinity sophomore and a university news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.