Owners put millions into Arlington apartment complex. Conditions still ‘hell’ for some
Rhonda Wallace was overwhelmed when she stepped in a pool of water in her apartment complex.
She and King, her 1-year-old son, had been gone for less than two hours Aug. 1 while heavy thunderstorms soaked much of the Metroplex. When they returned, the water came up to Wallace’s ankles. It was the seventh time her unit had flooded since moving to Paddock on Park Row last year, she said, leaving furniture like her dining room set and King’s child-sized couch waterlogged. She plans to move out with what she can at the end of September.
“I’ve been through purely hell since I’ve been here,” Wallace said.
The complex’s owner, the city government and neighborhood leaders have worked together to address the issues, which Arlington Housing Authority Executive Director Mindy Cochran said were identified and got worse after the winter storm in February and heavy springtime rainfall.
Lincoln Avenue Capitol, which owns the property, spent $24 million in renovations in 2020 in partnership with the Arlington Housing Authority. It then spent an additional $456,000 on the property, according to company spokesperson Alan Vaughn.
“At a 350-unit property built in the 1960s unexpected issues will arise, even after a significant renovation,” Vaughn said in an emailed statement.
“As a pipe breaks and gets repaired, another pipe breaks,” Cochran said. “They’ve gone well beyond what the original scope of the work was.”
Representatives with the company have been responsive to the city’s requests and recommendations since opening, Cochran said.
Lincoln Avenue Capital has installed new gutters, drains, catch basins and new sidewalks, Vaughn wrote.
The 350-home affordable housing project opened late last year to fanfare from the city, company and community groups familiar with the property previously known as Spanish Park Apartments and Cooper Crossing. Previous complex owners in late 2007 were threatened with hefty fines after some of the apartment buildings violated the city’s minimum housing standards, according to previous Star-Telegram articles.
“We said, ‘The only thing consistent about Spanish Park was inconsistency,’” Cochran said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Lincoln Avenue Capital initially invested $14 million into renovations, but found more issues with the property that drove up the price tag. Cochran said further repairs since the initial renovation remain an “ongoing process.”
Neighbors, company officials and city government are all on the same page about how to report and address issues, Cochran said.
“Tenants would reach out to neighbors, so the neighbors had to reach out to us. That kind of slowed down the process a little bit,” Cochran said.
Alicia Gray, president of Heart of Arlington Neighborhood Association, said she would like for employees with Lincoln Avenue Capital to discuss further improvement plans with her group. The organization that oversees part of historic central Arlington was under the impression that repairs and renovations would wrap up last fall.
“The only expectation we have is the one that they set for us over two years ago,” Gray said.
‘I don’t have anything else to give to a flood’
Some residents have contended with leaking pipes and flooding as long as they have been at the complex.
Beatriz Guerrero, her husband and three children moved into the Paddock in November. Guerrero was encouraged by the renovations. They had previously lived in Spanish Park and Guerrero worked in its leasing office. Her first week there, however, her home began experiencing leaks, and has flooded 21 times by her count.
The leaks have disrupted Guerrero’s efforts to homeschool her children, she said, and have displaced the family. Instead of bringing her toddler-aged children to the hotel that property management and owners provided for them, she sent her children to relatives so they would not be exposed to coronavirus or hotel conditions.
The issues with Guerrero’s home remind her of the same issues she experienced with Spanish Park, she said, when she had to use sandbags to keep water from her first-floor apartment.
“To kind of go back and it’s the same thing as I remember from back then, it’s disappointing,” she said. “You would think they would at least have put in the effort that they said they would. It just doesn’t feel like that, living there.”
Guerrero said her family is reconsidering renewing their lease. Meanwhile, Wallace is planning to return to Houston, where she came from to live closer to family in Arlington last year.
In the meantime, Wallace hopes the most recent fixes to the apartments worked. Sitting on sandbags on a sunny afternoon, Wallace could point to all of the recent improvements outside her home, including cleared gutters, new drains and newly poured concrete leading to her doorstep.
I’m just praying for the little time that I am left here, what they did works. I don’t have anything else to give to a flood,” Wallace said.
Guerrero said other residents may be reluctant to speak out due to fear of retaliation from property management. Guerrero said some have accepted their conditions as status quo for the complex.
“People will just live under these conditions,” she said. “They’re OK with that.”
However, property management is the first place to go, Cochran said, with individual apartment issues. Renters experiencing continuous problems can contact code enforcement at 817-459-6777 or the city’s housing department.
Vaughn said in an emailed statement that management on the property “immediately responds to residents when issues arise” and has completed nearly 800 work orders in the last four months.
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
