Students living near Ohio State University gained a new way to get around Columbus on Friday, November 13, as Envoy Technologies launched its fully managed electric-vehicle car-sharing service at Blume on 16th, a luxury student housing community near campus. The announcement, made in a GlobeNewswire release issued by Envoy on November 13, marks the company’s first deployment in the Midwest.
Blume on 16th is a 325-bed community, according to the GlobeNewswire release, and Envoy’s service becomes part of the resident experience there. Instead of owning a car, paying for parking and insurance, and keeping up with maintenance, residents can reserve a shared electric vehicle through the Envoy app by the hour or by the day for a grocery run, an appointment or a weekend trip away from campus.
At Blume on 16th, that shared vehicle is close at hand. Zachary Westover, associate director of sales and marketing at Up Campus Properties, told GlobeNewswire that Envoy places a Tesla Model 3 steps from residents’ front doors. Westover told GlobeNewswire the community was designed around how students actually live, including how they get around, and called the service a top-tier amenity that gives students flexibility without the cost and hassle of owning a car.
The Columbus launch is also Envoy’s first deployment with Up Campus Properties, adding a new developer relationship to the company’s student housing portfolio, the release said. Up Campus, headquartered in Chicago, specializes in pedestrian-to-campus student housing and says its team has delivered more than 25 communities totaling nearly 14,000 beds near 16 universities, including Ohio State, according to information in the GlobeNewswire release.
Envoy’s model is built to remove the operational work from the property. Unlike a traditional amenity that would require a building to manage vehicles and logistics, Envoy handles insurance, maintenance, charging and resident support, the company said in the release. That fully managed approach is the pitch to developers who want to offer shared EV access without running a small fleet themselves.
“Student housing represents a significant opportunity for Envoy as we enter new markets,” Drew Hopkins, president of Envoy Technologies, said in the GlobeNewswire release. Hopkins said in the release that developers are looking for ways to stand out in an increasingly competitive sector, that mobility is becoming part of that conversation, and that Envoy’s model allows them to offer something genuinely useful without adding operational complexity.
The timing reflects how competitive student housing has become around large universities. Envoy, in its GlobeNewswire release, cited a Mordor Intelligence estimate that the U.S. student housing market will reach $24.56 billion in 2026, with projections of $35.65 billion by 2031. In a market that size, properties near campuses such as Ohio State compete not only on rent and location but on the amenities bundled into daily life.
For Columbus, the launch adds another service aimed at a dense, student-heavy neighborhood where many residents do not bring a car to school. A shared EV steps from the door does not replace COTA buses, bikes or walking, but it fills a specific gap: the occasional trip that is too far to walk, too bulky for a bus, or outside a transit schedule — the warehouse-store run, the medical appointment across town, or the drive home for a weekend.
Envoy is headquartered in Los Angeles and is a wholly owned subsidiary of CID HoldCo, Inc., doing business as Dot Ai (Nasdaq: DAIC), according to the release. The company says it provides on-site EV car-sharing for residential communities, hotels, resorts and campus properties, and that the Columbus addition reflects a strategy of entering new geographic markets through partnerships with property owners and operators.
The launch also fits a broader pattern of investment and experimentation around Ohio State and Columbus, from housing to health care. Readers following that growth can revisit NewsForce247’s coverage of Ohio State and Microsoft’s $250 million bet on a smart hospital in Columbus and of the Columbus Clippers lighting up Huntington Park for 43 nights of holiday displays.
What happens next is a test of use. Envoy has not announced, in the release, how many vehicles will serve Blume on 16th beyond the Model 3 described by Up Campus, what residents will pay by the hour or day, or whether additional Columbus properties will follow. Those details will determine whether car-sharing becomes a standard amenity in Columbus student housing or remains a single-property experiment.
Developers and property operators interested in bringing the service to their communities can learn more through Envoy’s nomination page, the release said. For Blume on 16th residents, the service is available now as part of the resident experience, and its first Midwest winter — with the charging, range and demand questions that come with it — will be the real-world trial for the model in Ohio.
Photo: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY