Furnished apartments with high-speed Internet and cable, washer, dryer and full-size refrigerator for $350 to $500 a month.

A screaming deal to be sure — but only if you're an NAU student.

The newly completed McKay Village apartment complex opens today. It's located along University Avenue near Reilly Hall. Apartments are furnished, with paid utilities and amenities usually found only in private apartment complexes, such as a clubhouse with plasma screen TVs, a fireplace, game room and exercise room.

McKay Village apartments range in size from two to four bedrooms. According to NAU's Office of Residence Life, no deposit is required and no utility set-up fees or mandatory cleaning fees will be charged to residents of the apartments. All of the apartments are non-smoking. In all, the complex can accommodate up to 444 students.

"It's all undergraduate students, primarily upper division students," said Rich Payne, director of Residence Life for NAU. "It's been filled up for months."

Besides some landscaping and other minor work, the $19 million complex, built by Kitchell Contractors, is ready to go.

"The work started March of 2005, it's been about 16 months," said Payne. "The site on which McKay Village is located we tore down 126 apartments. They were post World War II-type construction. They were sparsely furnished."

The new complex, he said, offers larger square footage than the older apartments and a number of amenities not offered in the older units.

"The university is over a hundred years old and some of our housing is close to that. As we've built new buildings the last couple of years, we're slowly replacing older buildings as they wear out," said Payne.

McKay Village is named for Kay McKay, a Flagstaff non-profit executive who served as president of the Arizona Board of Regents and served on the board of several local organizations, such as the Flagstaff Leadership Program and the Literacy Volunteers of Coconino County. She was named the Arizona Daily Sun Flagstaff Citizen of the Year in 1994. In 2004, McKay was granted an honorary degree of humane letters by Northern Arizona University.

McKay, who divides most of her time between running the Flagstaff Big Brothers Big Sisters organization and her own business, Staff Management Rehabilitation, said having the village named for her is one of the highlights of her career. She couldn't be happier with the complex.

"It's absolutely thrilling, certainly better than anything that I ever experienced as a student at NAU in their dorms 45 years ago," said McKay. "They're beautiful, they're well-planned, and it's a real, I think, cutting edge way of dealing with students and their living arrangements."

Added McKay: "It is so beautiful and beautifully decorated and the students certainly deserve that. It's been a great honor for me that they would consider naming them after me and I'm very proud of that."

McKay joins a long list of other Flagstaff notables who made a difference in the college community. Ardrey Auditorium is named for Eldon A. Ardrey, who ran the music department. McConnell Hall is named for Sam McConnell, an Arizona legislator responsible for increasing NAU's funding. The Walkup Skydome is named for NAU's 11th president, J. Lawrence Walkup, who was credited for his work in gaining university status for NAU.

Other individuals whose names live on throughout NAU's campus include C.W. Sechrist, Platt and Barbara Cline, Douglas J. Wall, Alan V. du Bois, Arthur Adel, Margaret "Mother" Hanley, and many others.

Patrick Whitehurst can be reached at whitehurst1@peoplepc.com.