We started off the meeting with the principals from Gerdling Edlen, the builder of the project. The first thing they told us was that the financier, Morgan Stanley, was taking over the project, but they would still be managing the building. It wasn’t much of a surprise since it would be difficult to manage the building without any financial backing given the low occupancy in the building. They started fielding open questions from the residents…this is where the bullets started flying. I don’t think I can truly give a fair description of how angry and frustrated residents were, but I was half-expecting pitchfork and flames to be brought out. The prinicipals from Gerdling Edlen really had no remedies to the concerns, so it was essentially the residents battering them with all their frustrations. Here were the main PAIN points:
1) Odor Stench - Many of the units reek. As I mentioned before in my previous post, the vents to both towers take in air from the street level area. Some vents aren’t directly placed on the street level, but given the position and winds, a large portion of the air gets sucked up right into the vents. A lot of residents even on floors past the 20th were complaining about how their units smell like Barrio and the back alleyway. For me, the smell is pretty evident, but the worst is still for the sewage pick-up. Disgusting.
2) Noise – Garbage Trucks, Delivery Trucks, Boiler Plate, Garbage Trucks. Understood, it is the city, but the noises are loud. I know many residents past the 10th floor that are woken up by the garbage trucks nightly. Some even have to take meds to even function correctly. I’m pretty far up, but I can definitely still hear the clang of the delivery trucks at night. They wake me up from time to time.
3) Unfulfilled Promises – When I moved in, I was told there would be many things available, but none of them seem to have been fulfilled:
* (No charge) valet guest parking – Right now, I’d opt for just having any guest parking. The only parking available for guests is the Purple/Barrio parking which most of the time is packed during peak hours. Also, it’s the weirdest setup. Visitors actually have to go outside the building in order to get into Bellevue Towers. By the time this condo fills up, there will have to be some remedy for guest parking. Even with about 20% of the building full, many times, guests don’t have a place to park. Overall, there is a lack of parking at the building, there just is isn’t enough spaces, buyers can’t even buy an extra space if they wanted one.
* Cable in the workout rooms – The room with the treadmills have personal TVs, but you can only watch basic stations. After the switch to digital by Comcast, the TVs don’t have cable (over channel 30). I have asked on several occasions for a resolution for this, but the feedback has been that it’s too expensive.
* Dining Room – I was told that the community dining room would be free to use by residents, but it’s contingent on a $50 fee. Still a good deal, but still not what was promised.
* Café – There was supposed to be a café as the third restaurant offering on the bottom floor. Instead it will be a third bar/restaurant. Although, I didn’t have too may issues with this, many residents were told that it would be a cafe/restaurant vs. a bar.
* Initial Residents/ Price Integrity – As mentioned before, the first residents that moved in were (verbally) promised some price integrity, the prices have plummeted, the anger has risen.
4) Metering Fee for electricity - The building outsources a submetering company to do the eletricity. It's a nominal fee, but it's another $5/unit per month. With 542 units, it would seem possible to bill per unit for less than $32k/year.
5) Gym Noise – This is my own personal gripe. I didn’t know how the noise the gym reverberated so heavily. When you drop the weights slightly, it echoes to all the units around. I really would have thought that the builder would have insulated the gym so the noise wouldn’t affect the residents around it. As one of my fellow residents put it "It sounds like a gunshot just went off".
5) Gym Noise – This is my own personal gripe. I didn’t know how the noise the gym reverberated so heavily. When you drop the weights slightly, it echoes to all the units around. I really would have thought that the builder would have insulated the gym so the noise wouldn’t affect the residents around it. As one of my fellow residents put it "It sounds like a gunshot just went off".
