University of St. Thomas is 0.5 miles from UNITi Montrose at 701 Richmond Avenue — roughly a 10-minute walk. For students at UST trying to figure out whether to live on campus or off, that distance is the whole conversation. You can leave your apartment 12 minutes before class and make it. You can come back between classes to eat, study, or decompress. The commute essentially disappears.
The Distance in Real Terms
UST’s main campus entrance and Jones Hall are both within 0.6 miles of Richmond Avenue. That’s not a “close enough” approximation — it’s genuinely walkable in any weather short of a Houston downpour. If you’re on a bike, it’s two minutes.
For students who also spend time at Rice University or University of Houston, the math still works. Rice’s main campus is 3.4 miles from the property, about a 10-minute drive. The University of Houston main campus is 5.6 miles out, around 13 minutes. You can live in one spot and cover all three.
Why the Walk Matters More Than You Think
Most students don’t think carefully about the commute until they’re doing it every day. A 30-minute drive each way is an hour of your day gone, plus parking. On a semester with 15 credit hours, that adds up to real lost time.
Being able to walk to campus changes how you use your day. You go back to your apartment between classes instead of killing time in the library. You can run home to pick up something you forgot. You’re not spending Sunday nights dreading a Monday morning car commute.
For pre-med students especially, that kind of logistical friction matters. When your schedule is packed with labs, study groups, and office hours, you want the housing situation to require as little overhead as possible.
The Off-Campus Study Problem (and How UNITi Solves It)
One of the legitimate arguments for living on campus is proximity to study infrastructure — library access, quiet spaces, rooms where you can work in groups. Living off campus sometimes means driving back to campus every time you need that.
UNITi Montrose addresses this directly. The building has a dedicated coworking space, meeting rooms on every floor, and a podcast studio. For a pre-med student doing group study sessions or a communications student who needs to record a project, that infrastructure is in the building. You don’t have to drive back to campus to find a quiet room.
The by-the-bedroom leasing structure matters here too. In a 3-bedroom or 4-bedroom unit where each person has their own lease and their own private bathroom, you can have three people in the apartment studying simultaneously without the shared-space friction that comes from a typical roommate situation.
Getting Around the Rest of Houston
Montrose is one of the more walkable parts of Houston, which isn’t a city famous for walkability. Beyond the UST walk, a few spots worth knowing:
– **Blackwater Coffee Roasters** is 2.5 miles away — good for longer study sessions off-site when you want a change of scenery.
– **The Breakfast Klub** is 0.8 miles from Richmond Avenue. Enough said about the wings and waffles.
– **13 Celsius** is 1.2 miles out for a Thursday evening when you’ve earned a break.
– **Barnes & Noble** is 2.5 miles away — useful during finals when you want to browse study materials or just sit somewhere quiet that isn’t your apartment.
– **Timberline Fitness Studio** is 0.1 miles from the property, right there if you want to supplement the on-site fitness center.
For anywhere farther, Montrose’s grid layout makes rideshare pickup easy and quick. You’re not stuck waiting on a corner of a subdivision.
The Financial Reality of Off-Campus Housing
This is the real calculation for most UST students. On-campus housing carries a mandatory meal plan for many students, which inflates the apparent cost of living off campus when you compare against just the rent figure. Off-campus, you control your food spending entirely — Montrose has enough independent restaurants and grocery options that cooking or eating cheaply is realistic.
The by-the-bedroom lease structure at UNITi Montrose also means you’re not on the hook for a roommate’s share of the rent if someone leaves. Your lease is your own.
UNITi is currently offering half a month free on 3-bedroom and 4-bedroom floor plans. For students signing a 12-month lease for fall, that’s a meaningful reduction on the first year’s total cost.
What to Actually Factor Into Your Decision
The commute to UST from 701 Richmond Avenue is 0.5 miles. The building has private bathrooms by bedroom, study infrastructure inside the building, and a location that puts you inside one of Houston’s most walkable neighborhoods. Rice University is 10 minutes by car; UH is 13 minutes.
If you’re a UST student trying to decide between on-campus and off-campus housing, the proximity advantage of on-campus is smaller here than it is for almost any other off-campus option in Houston. The walk is that short.
Schedule a tour at UNITi Montrose and see the floor plans in person. Fall availability goes fast for by-the-bedroom units at this location.
