The Cadence apartments in downtown Tucson are facing an array of city code violations for unsanitary and unsafe conditions after residents reported heaps of trash littering the building and going several days without running water.
But the water going out was merely the tipping point of issues tenants have experienced, according to Ashvin Sriram, a two-year resident of The Cadence apartments, 345 E. Congress St. He has experienced a broken key fob entry system, littering throughout the property and a lack of response from management. “At this point, it’s making it uninhabitable,” he said.
Sriram says he coordinated with a group of residents to get the city involved. Tenants called the city building inspection office, which visited The Cadence on Tuesday.
The apartment’s owners and property management company — Cadence Apartments LLC and Apartment Management Consultants LLC, respectively — were issued a notice of violation for a broken water pump, trash build-up and structural issues, according to a report from Tucson’s Environmental and General Services Department.
City code inspectors gave the owners up to 30 days to fix each violation. Neither employees from The Cadence nor Apartment Management Consultants responded to the Arizona Daily Star’s request for comment.
‘A slew’ of problems
The Cadence downtown has been cited for code violations by the city of Tucson.
Sriram, who pays The Cadence $1,500 in monthly rent, says his water went out around noon Monday and did not come back on until Thursday afternoon.
“We haven’t had any suitable water for anything,” he said. “I mean, they’ve got the water back after four days, but there’s still a slew of other problems.”
With no family in Tucson to stay with in the meantime, Sriram was able to use the restroom and shower at friends’ houses.
Sriram says the apartment’s trash chutes have not worked for nearly a month, causing each floor’s trash room to pile up with waste.
“If you walk through the halls of the apartment, it reeks of trash,” he said. “The trash chute is broken, and so (management) said just put it in the room and they’ll pick it up. We keep putting it in the room, and no one is picking it up.”
Emily DePalma, who has lived at The Cadence for a year, says while the trash rooms are piling up, the rest of the premises are unsanitary as well. Residents have complained on Twitter about feces, dried throw up and dead birds throughout the property.
“Normally they come daily to empty it, but it just looked like nobody had been there in a while,” she said. “There’s been a dead pigeon outside for a month now that’s right outside of my apartment.”
City inspectors saw the issue for themselves and reported an abundance of garbage bags flowing out of each floor’s trash room and “litter and debris in all the hallways.”
Inspectors also reported a severe leak in the water pump system, which likely caused the four-day shut-off, and a detached stormwater drain causing water to pool into the east side of the building.
Sriram shared emails with the Star in which an employee told residents Tuesday the city shut off water service for a repair.
“I have spoken with them, and they will be having someone come out today to cut it back on,” Sabraya Terrell, a leasing consultant with The Cadence told tenants in an email. “I thank each and everyone of you for your patience and understanding.”
Tucson Water told the Star it had no records of shutting off the water. Fernando Molina, a representative from Tucson Water, said the utility received a complaint about the water shut off Tuesday and responded around 3 a.m. on Wednesday. Workers found a main valve had been turned off for “unknown reasons” and that an internal booster pump, which helps lift water to higher floors, was inoperable.
In addition to accumulating trash and a faulty water system, Cadence was ordered to fix structural issues, including a broken glass pane in a hallway and deteriorating wooden posts that support the apartment’s multi-story patio. Inspectors also found electrical defects, including missing electric components and exposed wiring.
The last two violations city staff asked Cadence to fix involved missing ceiling tiles on the seventh floor and graffiti on garbage containers. If the issues are not fixed, the city’s code official can have the work done at the cost of the property owner.
Security issues
Instead of manual keys, Cadence residents use a key fob to scan into the main lobby of the apartments and to access the elevators and their rooms.
“The key fobs have not been working. (The Cadence) has been leaving the doors open completely, and there have been homeless people wandering the floors, which they normally wouldn’t have access to if the key fobs were working properly,” DePalma said. “There’s been a few break-ins from people that I’ve heard on my floor.”
Ashvin Sriram, a two-year resident of The Cadence, shows an entrance to the apartment taped open with no employees staffing the front desk.
Sriram says he once opened his apartment door, and a homeless person leaning up against it fell into his room. He’s contacted Cadence several times to ask about the lack of security.
“All the fob systems are connected. If the front one isn’t working, then none of them are working,” he said. “I never thought that I would ever be in a position where I lock my door, and I’m not truly sure if my door is going to be locked.”
Sriram says he received one response from Cadence personnel regarding open access to a main gate entrance into the apartments. They told him it was the city’s problem.
City-owned building
The Cadence sits on top of the city-owned Centro parking garage, but technically, Tucson also owns the building itself.
The city leased The Cadence property to Tucson Properties LLC in September 2013 under a GPLET, or Government Property Lease Excise Tax, agreement. Under the GPLET program, the city takes ownership of a building and leases it back to the developer, which pays an excise tax based on size and use instead of property tax based on value.
Although the apartments have swapped property owners throughout the years, Cadence Apartments LLC is the current controlling entity of the apartments, which is responsible for addressing the notice of violation, according to Ryan Tripp, the real estate supervisor for Tucson.
Tripp says the city is not liable for the violations as its owns The Cadence in name only. The 2013 GPLET contract says the landlord “shall have no responsibility” for utilities, disruption of services or maintenance.
But until the notice of violation from the city, residents haven’t received much response from the liable entities for Cadence’s upkeep issues.
According to Sriram, representatives from Apartment Management Consultants LLC, Cadence’s management company, were at the property on Thursday. Lately, he has seen only two separate employees on the premises.
“I’m paying rent. I’m being a good tenant,” he said. “It’s just kind of ridiculous that they want to leave you out in the dry.”
He says he’s ended up being a “spokesperson” for other tenants, who banded together to call on city inspectors to examine the property.
“So long as The Cadence is just dealing with one person, they have the power,” Sriram said. “But we’ve got the power in numbers.”
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