Things have been a bit rocky in the world of University Park Lofts as of late and as a courtesy I am not placing this on the UPL blog. But tonight threw me over the edge a bit, and since when am I reserved and quiet. I will not sit back and watch my life be controlled. Every reason we bought at UPL has been demolished and stomped on over the last couple years but we stuck strong even when I was not sure I could handle anymore. I have come close to leaving alone just in order to be free from the drama that looms over this massive amazing building. The building must be haunted by the workers of the Cromptom & Knowles Mill workers….
So this past month we have known about a developer/investor who has been trying to buy this building for the last year, since the auction. We knew that his other properties while trashy, overgrown with green, and unfinished were mixed use. So part of us dreamt that we could have a gym and art gallery and he would really be buying into the neighborhood, the building and moving forward with the dreams of the owners of this building, while small in numbers we sure have dreams for this neighborhood and our building. Over the last year we have all put our efforts into making the building beautiful. We have art work from an owner in the lobby,landscaping from Neil (and I might add he is real good too) cleaning and mini projects, what the building can afford to do with a cash flow of 7k a month. Neil and Julie have balanced the books and managed the building, made great connections with local contractors. We have had the city council in on some ideas for the neighborhoods. Julie makes it to neighborhood safety meetings because knowledge of the neighborhood is very important.
All this in the last couple years. But at the same time we shut down the last investor/developer who crossed us. While small in numbers we all speak loud, we were able to get the ear of the Telegram , Worcester Magazine, Worcester Business Journal and Banker and Tradesman. The owners of the this building backed the bank when they wanted to have automatic stay from the bankruptcy. We made it so not one person rented here from Brett, because even one renter would have let him keep the building. This one lawyer who was a criminal defense and personal injury specialist could not lie or put one past us, we shut him down, through websites, blog post, newspapers and signs while demonstrating our freedom of speech. We are not someone, just anyone wants to start messing with.
This man- Mr. Jim Levin owns a few hideous buildings in Westboro, Hopkinton and Dudley. They are shanty converted, touched up mills that lack any type of “professional” atmosphere. We know this not from his website of American Mills but because of an owners drive by, inspect and picture taking of the properties. I have seen the pictures and I am not impressed. One of them I know very well as it was a mill 2 towns away from where I grew up and I passed it frequently. It was a working mill until about 6 years ago. This man claims and brags about his HUGE amounts of money he has, please show me where this money was spent. The bragging to other owners and a renter in this building makes me want to hurl. We are young couples, empty nester’s and singles, we could care less about a self proclaiming “millionaire.” Upon conversations with people in this building he has claimed his dissatisfaction with the “rules” of the building, not understanding why were would not allow dogs, well because the only dogs that were going to move into here were pit bulls and out building insurance will not cover the building with pit bulls in the building.
So of course with his complaint about our rules and things he wants differently we started to suspect that he had bigger plans that were not including the few individual unit owners in this building. Today the truth came out, this man has decided to buy 5 units in individual names and not under the LLC, and call a special meeting on the day he closes on the 31st of this month. During this special meeting he will vote himself and 2-3 other individuals he tags to the units as trustees and will officially take over the building. He has plans for the garage, this sorry excuse for a man thinks that he know everything about this building, damn the bank who is selling him this building doesn’t even know, because they do not care about the issues with the building. The fact that the garage door has not been oiled is a flaw from the current trustees- give me a break, the trustees for this building have put more energy than this man ever will into something that is worth so little.
What he doesn’t understand is we all spent WAY too much money when we bought, our mortgage would cover five of his units. We can not just walk away, it will take a lot of work if we want to move. To have someone bully their way into our building is not sitting well with me right now, I am a mess because I know how much energy I will need to devote to this travesty of a new investor. He is shady and not professional.
What do we want: we want someone who for the first 6 months to a year comes, observers, worries about his individual units and then, during a normal election of trustees tries to be a trustee. That would be grand. Instead this stranger is all of a sudden going to have control over the bank account and the day to day happenings of this building. I will not have any of this and I will not take this without a fight.
Things Mr Levin wants to do with this building:
- he hates the idea that we have individual roof deck spaces, he wants to make ONE roof deck for all the units. Sorry Sir, we are not giving up our spot and if we move it will be deeded to someone else.
- Wants the “empty” garage parking spots converted to storage, because he doesn’t believe in garage parking. Are you serious? This is the prime selling feature.
- wants to allow dogs and make it self regulated
- Thinks that the garage flooding is a simple problem and fix that- We would be looking at 100k dollars worth of work, is he donating that to the building?
- Wants to allow college kids live in the building, good bye nice quiet building
- Wants to replace the Elevator motor to improve the sound so he can rent out 508. Who is paying for the new motor? Another Assessment that will end with leans on all the units.
And so many other things over the last couple weeks. The nightmare will begin, I am 100% his goal is to get all of us to let him buy us out. This makes me so sad, this was our first home, whether or not it was a pleasant experience. To have investors coming in and acting as if all we have done and all we hope for doesn’t mean anything. I am sure at the Meet-and-Greet on Monday he will show good face and be pleasant and try to fool us a bit. But I am a very good judge of character and I do not trust this man. I am not a trustee, I am just an owner and I have the right to feel as if my views are being heard. I am just sad that it is all coming to this, the dreams of a full building and cocktail parties and roof get together’s will never transpire. This meeting on Monday will sure to be like the time Brett meet with us to say he would deed the whole roof off to us, if we just corporate and help him keep the building.
I am sure I will have more to come……Off to look at some houses.