Management at ilume is upset that the Kroger on Cedar Springs Road isn’t working with them to address issues with the store’s parking lot on weekends.
Joshuah Welch, ilume community director, said the store’s parking becomes a paid lot Thursday through Sunday, but the person who takes the money leaves around 1 a.m. and doesn’t monitor the noise and other activity.
Over the course of a year, he and other residents of ilume have been woken by the partying and have called police to complain.
He began emailing Kroger management last February to address the issue, offering to have ilume pay for security to monitor the parking lot so it wouldn’t disturb ilume residents.
“The residents of ilume deal with this loud and destructive party scene every weekend, and in turn are forced to call the police to get them to end the mob scene,” Welch wrote in one email to Kroger. “This is not only a problem for our building, but also a safety concern for your employees that work late and are forced to walk through this late at night.”
After several attempts to reach Kroger management over the last year, Welch said he’s still trying to solve the problem. Ilume hired two Dallas police officers to patrol the parking lot from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday through Sunday, and he said they have reported underage drinking, drug use, sexual activity and other illegal acts. He said Kroger hasn’t responded, even after ilume offered to take over the paid lot to ensure that it’s run properly.
A Kroger representative said the consumer affairs director for the North Texas region was unavailable for comment because he was on vacation but would return next week to address the situation.
Luke Crosland, ilume developer, said he thought ilume and Kroger had an understanding to eventually allow ilume to take over the parking lot because of the issue, but that hasn’t happened.
“We’re not trying to make money off of it. We just want it to be operated correctly and responsibly,” Crosland said. “They don’t have any supervision over it. They just take money and then leave.”
Crosland said Sunday night is the worst for noise and partying in the lot. He said the partying until the early hours needs to stop and Kroger should work with ilume to make the parking lot a responsible place to park.
“We need to put some pressure on Kroger. This is ridiculous what they do,” he said. “It’s just not community-responsible. … You don’t’ take a Kroger company parking lot and use it for party activities at two in the morning. It’s just not something that any community should tolerate.”