After the Marshall spoke, a representative from Morgan Stanley, Ira, came up to speak. At this point, the residents had spewed out most of their venom, so it was a pretty good time for Ira to come to speak. The main points that he spoke about were:
• Morgan Stanley will try their best to maintain the integrity of the price of the building. Definitely good news. The expectation is not to do an auction or do an apartment conversion.
• Will try to fix as many open issues as they can with the help of CDW.
• Early buyer proposals will be addressed, but the time line for a response is uncertain until Morgan Stanley takes total control of ownership
• The building does not have debt and is maintaining a sufficient reserves.
After the meeting, everyone stuck around so if we had more concerns, we could speak directly to the ownership and management. I went up to Ira, as I really wanted to know if there would be any compensation coming down the line for the initial residents on their proposals.
I go up to the area around Ira and understandably, there are a bunch of folks already asking him questions. I wait my turn patiently and then finally, had an opportunity to ask questions. But before I could open my mouth, he interrupts me…
“Are you a resident here?”
What?? Are you kidding me? I had just sat through a 3-hour long Owners Only meeting and I asked several questions in the meeting. I probably don’t fit the usual demographic of the building, but really? Are you going ask me that? Offended.
Basically, I, again, recount my issues when I moved in and was really hoping for some closure on the matter of the proposals that we made earlier, Didn’t’ get much more than was stated earlier – Morgan Stanley will have to completely take over the building first before they can address any proposals. This will take months and when you get a response, it will be small compensation (implied).
At this meeting there are a lot of folks from the Nyhus Media company running around taking notes. I think they are doing the PR stuff for Bell Towers and are taking notes to get a clearer picture of what folks were thinking and trying to fix the buidling’s image.
As I was talking to Ira, one of these note takers chimes in to Ira… “Oh he’s the one with the blog! I can give you the link!” Are you serious? I’m trying to make my case for some traction on my proposal and out of nowhere, this guy chimes in? I felt like I was in a elementary school classroom and this guy was telling on me. For the most part, it seemed like their job was to take notes and observe, but I guess not.
