The more than 200 tenants of UNCOMMON, an apartment building located just off campus at 514 E. Jackson Ave., received an unexpected letter Oct. 12: The property had been purchased by Capstone Real Estate Investments, and though initial email communications with residents stated nothing more than a name change, the building would now be immediately converted into condominium units.
The new owner provided tenants with two options: either “break” their lease early and accept a gift card for $1,250, or choose to stay and agree to be moved around the building as renovations take place. The letter stated, in part: “This may include a different unit type and/or floor, and could potentially include roommate changes due to the limited relocation options.”
Despite the options offered, many of the current tenants feel stuck and unprepared for the situation they are now living through.
Savannah Wehman, a UM student and UNCOMMON tenant, said the letter outlining the move-out was completely unexpected.
“At the end of September, we got notice that UNCOMMON was bought out by 514 Jackson and when asking the office if this would have any effect on the tenants, they told us no. There would just be some revamping and rebranding of the building, but the biggest change would be the name,” Wehman said. “About a week later, we came home to a note taped on our door and an email in our inbox. … My roommates and I now realized that the banging and construction that you could hear throughout the building was not repairs but the beginning of the renovations.”
Elizabeth Wehman, mother of Savannah Wehman and the guarantor on her lease, did not receive an alert about the changes. When she found out about the buy-out and renovation process from her daughter, she was shocked.
“There are just so many facets to this that are inconvenient, expensive, unwarranted and I don’t understand why,” Elizabeth Wehman said. “It just makes me mad that it’s trickled down so that the people that live there are the ones having to foot the issues that come with it.”
The following is an excerpt from the letter tenants received outlining the change and subsequent options:
OPTION 1: Terminate Your Lease Early & Receive $1,250! (Limited Number Available)
- You can terminate your lease early and move out any time between now and December 31, 2022, and we will prorate your rent as of your move out day and waive all future remaining lease obligations.
➣ For example, if you move out on December 15th, you will only owe rent and utilities through this day. All future rent and further obligations are waived.
➣ All we need you to do is take all your personal belongings, throw out your trash, and turn in your keys to the office.
- If you choose this option and move out on or before December 31, 2022, you will receive a $1,250 gift card.
- We only have a limited number of early terminations available, so please consider this option and let us know via the link in this letter as soon as possible.
OPTION 2: Choose Not to Move Out Early & Stay Through Your Current Lease End Date
- Stay through your lease end date of July 31, 2023, and continue paying all your rental installments with no adjustment to your lease.
- As previously mentioned, the renovation plan will most likely have you relocate to another unit mid-semester at least once, and possibly twice prior to the expiration of your lease. This may include a different unit type and/or floor, and could potentially include roommate changes due to the limited relocation options.
Stephen Denton, vice president of Capstone Real Estate Investments, believes that the decision to transform the apartment building into the condominium building — 514 Jackson — will provide the town a much needed asset with their 68 new condo units.
“Oxford is a special town, and a residence within walking distance to the Square and campus is one of the most unique and exclusive property ownership opportunities in any SEC market,” Denton said. “Our desire is that 514 Jackson will reflect the energy and buzz at Ole Miss and around Oxford and provide owners an opportunity to participate in the best Oxford has to offer in a central, secure and walkable location.”
The new building owners wanted to start the renovation process immediately, but developing such a lucrative property in a building currently occupied by tenants created a problem. To best handle the situation at hand, management chose to provide tenants with the two options mentioned above.
“Regardless of which option tenants choose, we are fully committed to upholding our contractual obligations per every tenant’s lease,” Denton said.
Elizabeth Wehman says the issue is one of those fine print details that you know might be a possibility, but never expect it to happen. Once the announcement came, they felt pressured to make a decision no one should have to make in the middle of a semester, and the development company hasn’t been providing much help in such a stressful situation.
“You just feel like you move and you’re set for the next school year — check and done,” Elizabeth Wehman said. “I don’t feel as though the residents were treated as customers, which essentially they are.”
While prominent members of the Oxford community such as Mayor Robyn Tannehill and UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce have expressed their sympathies to residents in this situation, Elizabeth Wehman said the feedback from the new property management company has been nonexistent.
Her daughter, Savannah, is feeling stressed in the wake of that silence.
“It is mid-October, midterms and finals are coming out, I have a job and so do some of my other roommates, and I simply do not have time to get up and move halfway through the semester, but I don’t have a choice,” Savannah Wehman said. “I no longer feel secure in my apartment knowing that they could choose to move me at their own convenience, and the money that is offered, but not guaranteed, does not cover the cost of moving, let alone the time and mental strain that it will take.”
Students who are now having to scramble to find other accommodations or prepare to be bounced around to different apartments for the remainder of the school year say this couldn’t have come at a more disruptive time.
“This has been such a stressful time for myself, my roommates and everyone I have talked to that lives at UNCOMMON,” Madelyn Waguespack, a senior electrical engineering major from New Orleans, said. “My friend is even considering moving all of her classes online for next semester and just moving home. It is sad that some people are even considering this, especially during her senior year.”
Even those residents who would like to leave may not be permitted to due to the limited amount of move-out offers available. Residents who want to move out but weren’t offered the option have been put on a waiting list, where they hope to eventually vacate the premises under the offer terms providing the $1,250 in compensation.
“I did find a place that I could get a lease at, but after only five days of knowing that we needed to leave, all of the move-out spots were filled up, so unless I’m able to get off of a move-out waitlist they created, I’m stuck here,” Chemistry Ph.D. candidate Athena Flint said. “It’s caused a lot of unneeded stress. We’re all busy graduate students, and to be told that we have to either a) drop everything and move across town or b) drop everything multiple times in the spring to move everything we own across an apartment building is very concerning.”
Many of the apartment complexes geared toward housing students are either already at full capacity or don’t offer six-month leasing, leaving students to look at other city housing options that could potentially be more expensive compared to affordable student housing.
“We put our whole lives on hold from Wednesday-Friday, searching every apartment complex and housing website until we found a new one,” Waguespack said. “We toured it on Friday and immediately contacted the landlord to rent it because we knew we needed to act quickly. The rent is the same, but the utilities will be more expensive, and we will have to buy furniture.”
For the unlucky ones who weren’t able to secure a place to stay on time, they must now not only deal with being shuffled around the building, but also the chance of being separated from their current roommates and living with people they have never met.
“We’ll likely get roomed with people we don’t know during the construction, which makes me feel unsafe and anxious on behalf of my rather skittish cats,” Flint said. “I’ve chatted with a few (UNCOMMON tenants) in person and over text. They’ve shared concerns about being able to get to campus. Many have brought up concerns about safety, citing safety issues they’ve experienced at other complexes and how UNCOMMON had felt particularly secure to them.”
One of the many reasons students chose to live at UNCOMMON was its close proximity to campus. This allowed students without a car to not worry about transportation, and others to opt out of purchasing a parking pass and walk to campus instead. If students with cars are forced to move far away from campus, they will now have to buy a parking pass as well.
“Everyone I have talked to has been angry about this and feels like we were not even thought about in the decision,” Waguespack said. “If they had any care for the students that live here, they would have waited until the summer or next fall to do these renovations. It’s truly just shocking, confusing and upsetting to all of the residents.”
Converting student housing into condominiums is not a phenomenon just limited to Oxford — college towns across the country have been experiencing this trend since the early 2000s. Despite the benefit the new condos may provide for interested buyers, it leaves student residents in trouble.
Elizabeth Wehman says that if this is the trend, a better approach should be used in the future.
“There is more to being a business and a member of the community than the bottom line,” Wehman said.
