The apartment complex where our 22 year old daughter is living for the school year has not quite lived up to its expectations. The fact that they have fired two different construction companies has been part of the problem and the wether has not completed been cooperating, but the leasing office has tried again to put a positive spin on their latest news. They recently announced that the onsite gym will be ready for use tomorrow and that the first five residents to stop by the office at 12 noon will receive a free glass water bottle with the apartment complex logo on it.
Neither the water bottle or last night’s hot chocolate, however, can make up for the inconveniences that the current residents have endured. And while there are many times when residential, commercial, and civil construction projects have run into problems, these delays seen excessive.
In other construction news, the leasing office announced that the new construction company, the third one so far, has completed the transfer of all contractors and vendors to the new construction company and that the new crew has begun scheduling projects. The office assured the resident that they will see, as of today, a more active construction crew onsite. The construction crew, in fact, has supposedly taken advantage of the warmer weather and have begun the installation of the perimeter fencing, framed out the study area, and leveled the ground in certain areas. The fact that your daughter has lived in a space that has not done an adequate job of preventing erosion from water runoff nor built retaining walls, however, means that the complex continues to look more like a construction site than a livable space.
The concrete structures that are supposed to serve as a gateway into the community have been promised fr months, but the reality is that you finally had to buy a video doorbell to monitor the hallway outside of her apartment is an indication of how insecure the building has been so far.
Residential, Commercial, and Civil Construction Sites Must Follow City Codes and Regulations
The leasing company may act excited about the fact that they are placing the sprinkler lines and marking the grounds for landscaping, but you will sleep better at night when you know that the building is more secure. And while they indicate that they are working with the civil construction crew that is building the parking lot, your daughter is still having to park on the street for now.
Concrete is used more than any other human made material on the planet, but this apartment building company cannot seem to figure out what they need to do to finish either the parking lot or the covered parking structure. In conversations you have had with friends who are civil construction engineers, they have expressed both concern and surprise that any residents were allowed to move into any of these buildings given the state of the project. And while you are not paying anywhere near full rent, if your daughter’s busy class schedule allowed her to move, you would have already made a change.
More than 2 billion tons of cement are produced every year, but you cannot figure out how the sidewalks around this apartment building are going to last based on the current amount of erosion caused by rains earlier in the fall and the ice and snow melts so far this winter.
Winter weather is here and you continue to be worried about the safety of the areas surrounding the apartments. As freezing rain lands and the snow sticks you are constantly reminding your daughter that she and her roommate need to keep in mind that the snow or ice may melt one day and refreeze as it gets colder.
Living in a brand new fully furnished apartment sounded great at the time you signed the lease, but now you are wishing that you would have moved your daughter into a building that was already complete. It is likely that any civil construction engineer could have looked at the time frame and told you that this building was never going to ready by the time when it was promised.
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