A fledgling Longwood Towers Tenant Association has been formed by renters at the Brookline apartment development angered by property owner TIAA-CREF’s handling of unit renovations.
TIAA-CREF serves as the financial backbone of the nation’s academic retirement system, but a group of Brookline residents is giving the New York-based pension fund a failing grade for its ongoing renovation project at Longwood Towers, an upscale apartment complex where rents can exceed $2,500 per month. Perhaps even more alarming, several tenants charge TIAA is acting the part of a schoolyard bully, with attorney Richard M. Bluestein charging last week that the landlord’s approach has been “heavy handed – off-the-charts heavy handed.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Bluestein, who claims tenants are being improperly locked out of apartments for undefined stretches, furnishings have been exposed to the elements and daily construction is making life unbearable for residents of the three-building property. Despite dust, noise and being deprived of living quarters for months at a time, tenants have been refused any rent rebate, Bluestein said, and some are even being forced to double-pay on utilities when shuttered into temporary apartments while work commences in their units. The situation has become so dire that several residents have formed an impromptu tenant’s association, one Bluestein is representing in addition to several of the allegedly aggrieved residents who organized the entity.
The imbroglio is occurring just as TIAA-CREF is trying to sell Longwood Towers to the Radco Cos., an Atlanta firm which appears to be pursuing a condominium conversion strategy of the 268-unit property. The $110 million sale, slated for completion in mid-October, was first reported last week on Banker & Tradesman’s Web site, www.bankerandtradesman.com. At approximately $410,000 per unit, the transaction would be among the priciest ever for a multi-family property sold in metropolitan Boston.
Although Radco is named in a terse letter sent by Bluestein last week to TIAA-CREF attorneys, Bluestein stressed that his clients feel the difficulties are primarily the fault of the current owner, which bought Longwood Towers two years ago for just over $80 million. While one source suggested TIAA-CREF may have overpaid for the asset and sees a sale to a condo converter as the only way to profit from its investment, Bluestein and several residents spoken with said the concept of a condominium structure is not the chief concern, and may be welcomed by current tenants if done properly. On the flip side, Bluestein acknowledged the irony that the disruptions residents are enduring would ostensibly benefit future unit owners more than current occupants.
Tensions at Longwood Towers came to a head last week when TIAA-CREF officials fired off letters to three tenants, including one who has been displaced from her apartment for more than a month and who related horror stories of her experience last week to Banker & Tradesman. According to Bluestein, two of the targets had balked at moving out when hearing of the difficulties encountered by others as a result of the renovation, in which TIAA-CREF is replacing all of the apartment windows and making other alterations.
‘Irreparable Harm’
In the TIAA-CREF letter, sent by Boston attorney Jeffrey C. Turk, the residents are threatened with default of their leases, as well as legal action to recoup any damages resulting from delayed renovations. TIAA-CREF also maintained it is under order by state officials to de-lead the apartments. Failure of the tenants to comply quickly will result in “irreparable harm” to TIAA-CREF, the letters said.
Bluestein’s letter last week followed the TIAA-CREF missives. In his response, Bluestein called the legal saber-rattling “the latest step in a campaign of misrepresentation and intimidation being mounted by [TIAA-CREF]” and criticized the delivery of the missive late at night, with one tenant finding a letter slipped under the door of her temporary apartment, in which she has been residing since mid-August.
Not only are TIAA-CREF’s demands “completely unreasonable,” Bluestein suggested the efforts are targeting the leaders of the fledgling Longwood Towers Tenant Association. That, Bluestein charged, is a “clear violation” of state statutes barring retaliation against individuals who participate in such an organization. Bluestein also disputed the existence of a state order to de-lead the units, and indicated plans to file his own legal action against TIAA-CREF for violation of consumer protection laws and other regulations.
“This tenant’s group is very resolute, and they are not going to back down from any attempts at intimidation,” said Bluestein, who said he believes his clients may be due restitution and financial damages for TIAA-CREF’s actions. Along with that firm and Radco, Bluestein also names Longwood Tower’s management company, Lincoln Property Co., in the letter to Turk.
In a conversation with Banker & Tradesman, the recipient of the letter slipped under the door by TIAA-CREF recounted her initial excitement over the plan to replace the windows when told of it during an informational meeting this spring. In documents provided to Banker & Tradesman, the owners stated that residents should be able to return to their apartment the same day, adding that “the plan does not anticipate anyone having to stay out of their apartment overnight.”
The tenant, who wished to remain anonymous, said she returned home the night her unit was to be redone to find a three-foot hole in the wall and disruptions to her furniture. Management response initially was to patch the area with duct tape and plastic, she said, but that measure was quickly followed by the news she would have to move to a temporary apartment in the building for “five to seven days.” Not only did autumn arrive last week with the woman still displaced, recent efforts to get back into her apartment resulted in management changing the locks, she said. Meanwhile, the tenant has been forced to pay cable and electric bills for her unit and in the temporary apartment, whose previous occupants apparently left town in arrears of those accounts.
“It’s frustrating,” said the woman, a self-described “law-abiding citizen” who has lived at Longwood Towers for nine years. As with many of her fellow tenants, she is a high-level professional, serving as an expert on child eyesight with the New England College of Optometry. Besides extensive travel, the tenant acknowledged that her daily research and teaching duties can be taxing. “I just don’t need [the living disruptions] on top of my professional life,” she said, adding that efforts to follow her beloved Red Sox have also been interrupted.
TIAA-CREF officials did not comment on the potential legal action, but spokesman Glen Weiner did issue a statement on Friday regarding the renovations. “We are working on enhancing the quality of the apartments,” Weiner relayed. “We recognize that this has caused short-term inconvenience, but believe in the long run that it will greatly improve their comfort and livability.”
Weiner declined comment on the pending sale of Longwood Towers, which Radco President Norman Radow last week confirmed is under way. Radow said he is aware of the renovation controversy, but directed inquiries to TIAA-CREF. Nonetheless, Radow said he is anxious to take control of the property, which he pledged would receive swift attention from his company, one renowned for yielding high-quality residential developments. Radow declined to say his firm is planning a conversion of Longwood Towers to condominiums, but expressed optimism about the asset going forward. “We love the property and we love the neighborhood,” said Radow, whose firm also completed the Grandview condominiums near Boston Common, a 62-unit building that fetched upwards of $4 million for some units.
