When Adam Prince got home from Iraq in 2008, he dreamed of a peaceful life in Little Rock. But the house he purchased on Brown Road backing up to Valley Heights Apartments at 6900 Cantrell Road ended up more reminiscent of his U.S. Army days in Baghdad than he’d bargained for.
“We call it the front lines,”said Prince, 32, of his street. “That’s literally what it is.”
Prince and about 60 other residents of the Kingwood neighborhood, including Chief of Police Stuart Thomas and City Director Stacy Hurst, gathered in St. Paul United Methodist Church on Wednesday night to meet John Bailey, the new owner of more than half of Valley Heights, which is legally two separate properties.
Bailey of BSR Trust, which acquired the property in March, spoke of big plans - plans to remodel the apartments, to tighten security, to evict tenants who cause trouble.
But the Kingwood neighbors say these are all promises that have been made, and broken, before.
Dovie Norcross, 65, has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years.
“This was the safest place in Little Rock,” she said. “I never had a problem.”
But in recent years, Norcross said, crime has skyrocketed.
NEIGHBORHOOD ISSUES
In June 2012, Little Rock filed suit against Valley Heights in the hopes of having the property declared a common nuisance, which could eventually shut theplace down. The official complaint, filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court and since amended, said the Little Rock Police Department received 361 calls from or in regard to the complex from July 2011 through July 2012. It also cited excessive noise at night, criminal activity in the complex, drugs found in the complex and gunshots in the complex. Right now, the suitis in the discovery process, according to Cliff Sward, assistant city attorney for Little Rock.
In October 2012, Regions Bank filed a foreclosure suit against Henry Management Inc., which purchased Valley Heights in 2002 and rented federally subsidized apartments. In November 2012, Centennial Bank also filed a foreclosure suit against Henry Management. BSR Trust then purchased Centennial Bank’s mortgage in March. Earlier this month, Regions Bank won its foreclosure suit and appointed Sunbelt Management of Albertville, Ala., recipient of its units.
At the hour-and-a-halflong neighborhood meeting, neighbors shared personal stories - $50,000 stolen in heirloom jewelry, cars stolen from driveways, the sound of gunshots, yelling from the apartment pool late into the night, children breaking into people’s private pools.
Prince, who lives with his two dogs, said he has had bullets land in his backyard. In fact, he has a bullet hole in one of his house’s windows, although he wasn’t home when that happened. He said he’s had fireworks thrown into his yard, has rocks thrown at him on a weekly basis and has been robbed three times in the past six weeks. And he doesn’t just hear gunshots, he hears automatic weapons fired, he said.
“It was like a flashback,” he said. “I thought I was back in Iraq.”
Hurst reminded neighbors on Wednesday that there are plenty of other problem properties in the area, and not all problems should be attributed to Valley Heights.
After the meeting, Bailey said he agreed. It’s not fair to blame the residents of the apartment complex, he said.
“They’re not a criminal just because of where they can afford to live,” he said.
APARTMENT PHASES
Bailey, who said he’s managed three other properties like Valley Heights, said when he took over Centennial Bank’s mortgage - deemed Phase No. 1 - the property was in a state of disarray. Trash was everywhere. Abandoned mattresses were lying around. The lawn was overgrown.
He said he renamed his 13 buildings - containing 126 units - Cantrell Heights, cleaned up the grounds and evicted about 30 of the previous residents or didn’t renew their leases. Today, many of his buildings are boarded up, and construction is under way. He plans to bring the apartments up to code and turn them into market-rate apartments, getting rid of the income-requirements that used to be in place.
Bailey has hired security and said that when he begins leasing out the renovated units, he plans to conductbackground checks.
“We’re serious about being good neighbors, good stewards,” he said at the meeting.
“You’re not saying anything that the previous owner didn’t say before,” one neighbor told Bailey - a sentiment that was echoed by others throughout the meeting. But Bailey remained optimistic.
Hurst said she thought Bailey would be good on his word.
“He’s a good owner and a good property manager,” she said. “So I think this is a very good result for the neighborhood.”
About 35 residents remain on his property, he said.
One resident at the apartment complex, who didn’t want to give her name, said the recent months have been laden with misinformation. She’s lived at the complex for almost a year, and she said she found out she needed to find somewhere else to live from some notices left around the property. First, she said, residents were told to “immediately leave.” But management then extended the deadline to the end of the month, she said.
“I never really liked the atmosphere out here,” she said.
Bailey said he’d eventually like to also own Phase No. 2, which comprises the two buildings with 72 units owned by Regions Bank.
But Rudy Beaver, president of Sunbelt Management that manages Phase No. 2, said he didn’t think that was likely.
Beaver said since he began working on the property in August 2012, he has rehabilitated it, has evicted about 12 people and has seen no incidents in the past four months. When he took over, the place was well over 50 percent vacant, he said. But now it’s at 68 percent occupancy and growing.
“We’ve got Phase No. 2 back on its feet,” he said.
The property, with buildings that date back to 1967, has been in the city’s crime-abatement program since April 2011. Little Rock police received some 214 calls in 2010 in regard to the property, according to the program’s log. Police have received 47 calls about the property since early March, a few weeks before Bailey took over and months after Sunbelt Management came into the picture.
There are more than 40 properties on the program’s list right now, including Heritage House Inn at 7500 S. University Ave., Stone Crest Apartments at 9700 BaseLine Road, and La Changes Restaurant at 3315 W Roosevelt Road. The program started in 2004 and allows city departments to get together once a month to monitor properties that cause the city trouble, said Bryan Day, assistant city manager. He said properties are taken off the list when they’ve come into compliance.
MOVING FORWARD
The changes in ownership and the grand plans haven’t deterred the city from its lawsuit, said City Attorney Tom Carpenter.
“Just because a new owner comes in doesn’t mean theproperty’s history ends,” he said, “nor does it mean the property is forgiven for its history to date.”
Carpenter said everyone will have to look at what the circumstances are now, but the city is moving forward with the case.
Sward said he didn’t have a time estimate for when he expected the suit to be settled. “It’s just a slow process,” he said.
The city has four attorneys that work abatement cases, he said. He has about 15 he’s working on, but only one or two are apartment complexes or larger businesses, he said.
“Most of them are much smaller,” he said.
Adam Prince and many of his neighbors just want peace.
“Until they get rid of the tenants, it’s not going to change,” he said.
Prince said he wants to move, but he doesn’t think he’d be able to sell his house.
“If I could break even right now, I’d sign the papers and run.”
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 06/23/2013