Trash rooms at 4123 Cedar Springs and at Park West had been overflowing until the new property manager began cleaning out the spaces himself.
(Photo courtesy of a resident)
But troubled property may have turned a corner in resolving maintenance issues
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
“I too, have great concerns as a handicapped veteran living at 4123 apartments,” wrote one resident of the troubled property on Cedar Springs Road following the recent publication in Dallas Voice of an article on maintenance and service issues at the mixed-use complex.
“There is only one access point for disabled and wheelchair-bound people,” the resident wrote. “The biggest worry is the lack of feeling secure within the building and parking garages.”
The resident explained there is no management, maintenance, janitorial staff or security personnel on the premises where broken security gates in the garage haven’t been repaired in months.
Another resident wrote, “I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the trash issue,” noting that all of the trash chutes and trash rooms were filled with garbage that, as of last weekend, had continued to pile up and flow out into the hallways. “I’m not sure at this point why it’s taken [a] week and still no type of trash service or maintenance person,” they wrote.
The week it’s taken to replace staff and services refers to the July 1 exit of management company Lincoln Property from 4123 and Park West. Although Lincoln had announced its departure from the properties at least a month in advance, new management wasn’t fully in place to replace them.
“Garbage overflowing,” wrote another. “AC in common areas not working. Hot tub broken. Gym equipment broken. Gate broken no ETA. Common areas full of litter. Package locker shut down (with packages inside).”
Garbage seemed to be the number one concern of residents over the past week. With trash overflowing into the hallway and air conditioning not working in common areas while outside temperatures hit the 100 degree mark, several wrote that the smell was unbearable.
Because of fear of retribution by the owners of the properties, residents identities are remaining anonymous: “I fear retaliation as some have been asked to go for speaking up and still had to pay after being evicted,” one wrote.
One person with information on the transition of management companies wrote, “They were not set up for success. No information on how things worked was passed along.”
The former property managers worked a half day on Friday, June 30, and were told to leave. While many repairs were passed over, basics — like garbage collection — continued while Lincoln Property was managing. That stopped when they left.
According to one source, Sun Equity Group, the properties’ owner, is rumored to owe vendors $3.5 million, which is why things weren’t fixed.
“They were blacklisted by other vendors for them not ever paying invoices,” the source alleged. “Apartment locaters are due thousands of dollars.”
But by midweek this week, one resident reported that some progress was being made. “The garage gate is fixed,” he wrote. “Short version is they do seem to have a plan for addressing most of these issues.”
And the list of issues was long.
After what he described as an hour-and-a-half talk with the new assistant manager, the new management company, he wrote, understands “which issues can’t wait for them to be fully staffed up and all the parts/supplies vendors lined up.”
The management is bringing in contractors who can address some of the most serious issues right away and are prioritizing the others. A pool company has been hired and treated the pool for the first time on Tuesday. They’re lining up vendors for additional needed parts and supplies, he wrote.
“So once they have all the staff hired and contracts in place they should be able to start clearing up the backlog of maintenance requests and then getting the place operating at what we would consider normal,” he wrote, defining “normal” as “before everything started going sideways.”
As for the trash, “the property manager from Park West personally went and spent an entire day and a half clearing the trash rooms at 4123 by himself,” he wrote.
And he spent the next day assisting the cleaning crew in clearing out the trash rooms at Park West.
The report that he had walked off the job was incorrect, the resident explained: “He was actually out on the property addressing problems that he could take care of himself.”
So at least one resident is impressed with the effort being made by the new management staff and understood that fixing all the problems would take some time.
“Most property managers I’ve known wouldn’t dare get their hands dirty and do that kind of work on a property, so major kudos to him for doing so,” the resident wrote.
Dallas Voice’s attempts to contact property management or owners went unanswered.
