Maslow’s Campus Communities was founded by Bill Bayless in 2024, the latest chapter in a pioneering career that has transformed the student housing industry into an institutional asset class; introduced innovative transaction structures and financing programs for on-campus public private-partnerships that enabled universities to modernize housing more efficiently; and revolutionized the programming, design and operations of student housing to create affordable student communities that foster collaborative interaction, personal growth and academic achievement.
Joining Bayless as partners in Maslow’s are Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Beese and Chief Investment Officer William Talbot, long time student housing veterans who both served with Bayless as C-Level officers at American Campus. Maslow's is assembling a team of proven professionals including Executive Vice President of Transactions and General Counsel Brian Winger and Senior Vice President of Project Management Clint Braun. The team has worked together for more than 20 years to structure, develop and deliver on-campus public-private partnership (P3) projects, earning a reputation in the industry for making executive decisions that benefit university partners and create win-win solutions for all stakeholders.
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Maslow’s and Pennybacker Capital Management, LLC a leading real assets investment manager, have formed a strategic partnership that will provide Maslow’s with capital to pursue investment strategies focused on public-private partnerships with universities nationwide seeking to modernize on-campus student housing infrastructure, as well as the selective acquisition and development of off-campus communities. Beyond their impressive track record, Pennybacker shares our vision and perspective on the importance of company culture, values and creating win-win outcomes. This is a partnership that colleges and universities can look to with confidence.
Bill's Story
Considered by many as the nation’s foremost student housing expert, Bayless began his career as a resident assistant at West Virginia University in the 1980s, where he first studied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and forged a vision for modernizing student housing to intentionally facilitate student development.
After graduating, Bayless worked to establish student housing divisions within traditional real estate companies where he was involved in the development of six of the earliest on-campus P3s. Somewhat frustrated working within these traditional real estate companies, it was during this time he developed a commitment to student affordability embracing the mantra “build for the masses, not the classes.”
In 1993, the young entrepreneur co-founded American Campus Communities as a four-person start-up with a mission to become the nation's premier provider of student housing and transform and institutionalize the industry along the way.
Bayless pioneered large-scale on-campus P3s with prominent systems of education such as the Texas A&M University System, the State University of New York System and the University of California System — innovating 100 percent project-based debt-financing structures that included tax-exempt bonds, conventional leasehold mortgages and taxable bonds.
He then led the industry to new heights in 2004 by taking American Campus public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:ACC), introducing the student housing sector to institutional investors globally. This substantially lowered the cost of capital available to the industry and facilitated the on-campus developer-equity P3 model, which offered universities the most “credit-friendly” P3 transaction structure to date.
Under his strategic direction and leadership, American Campus developed more than 100 on-campus P3 projects, grew to house more than 135,000 students annually and was continually recognized as the industry’s best-in-class company, including being named as one of America’s most trusted companies by Forbes and Newsweek. Bayless also personally led the development of one of the nation’s largest residential projects, a 10,400-bed community at Walt Disney World to house the Disney College Program.
With Bayless at the helm, the publicly traded ACC stock delivered a 703 percent total shareholder return between 2004 and 2022, outperforming the Morgan Stanley REIT Index by 2.1x, the Dow Jones Industrials by 1.7x, and the S&P 500 by 1.6x. This strong financial performance was achieved while the company's average student rents increased just under three percent annually during the same time period, consistent with Bayless’ commitment to affordability.
Bayless left ACC in 2023, one year after the company’s public board of directors approved the sale of the company to Blackstone for $12.8 billion.
After 30 years leading American Campus, Bill took a year off to spend time with his family before forming Maslow’s Campus Communities with the goal of once again building the student housing industry’s best-in-class and most trusted company.