Earlier this month
we reported onthe pending sale of the James Robertson Apartments building, which was slated to change ownership, forcing inhabitants to vacate their homes by April 21 and marking the end of a project-based Section 8 HUD contract.
In December, building management, under the administration of owner Robert Keenan of Robert A. Keenan Construction Co., informed residents of the pending sale. Since then, living conditions in the 12-story, 124-unit structure have deteriorated to a point at which residents — all of whom are age 62 or older and on low- or fixed-income rent subsidies — are scrambling to get out.
On Dec. 26, a fire damaged two elevators. Residents were instructed to call maintenance in order to use the freight elevator, but service was not dependable, leaving many individuals with no other option than to walk several flights of stairs if they wanted out of their apartments. It took more than a week for management to repair one of the elevators (at press time, the other was still broken).
The broken elevator was the straw that broke the camel's back for many of the residents, including Linda Marsden, who told the Scene horror stories of a building filled with illegal squatters, human feces in stairwell corners, and an unresponsive staff. Just as Section 8 residents must abide by rules, landlords are accordingly expected to meet criteria established through the HUD contract. For Linda and her husband Myles, they were just hoping to move out of the building as soon as possible.
This morning, Nashville Metro Social Services held a meeting with residents to assist with the moving process. That includes the distribution of tenant-based vouchers, which provide subsidized rent anywhere in the state and in the country. The Marsdens received their vouchers today, and once their chosen future home passes a HUD inspection, they'll move. They left the meeting optimistic.
And then they found out that the building's office staff — including on-site manager De Anna Horner, who also lives in the building — had just been fired.
Marsden, who has stepped up to the task of watchdogging building management to ensure residents have safe living conditions, told the Scene that one of the terminated staffers apologized to her for not responding over the past few months. The staffer said that building management told her to "unfriend" Marsden on Facebook if she wanted to keep her job. According to other tenants, another fired staffer told them that Keenan has no intention to fix the other elevator, or do much of anything with the property, even though the residents can legally live there until April.
According to Marsden, the building is even more filthy than usual, and while there's reportedly a new woman in the office, nobody seems to know what's going on. The Scene attempted to reach the woman — Martha, though nobody can tell you her last name — in the on-site office, but the call was routed to an answering service, at which point a woman informed us that the apartment building had been sold, and that nobody was in the on-site office. She also said there was not a forwarding phone number.
After ramming into that dead end, we tried Keenan's office. His employee, who identified himself as Phil Johnson, informed us that the building had been sold. He provided the same phone number we had just called if we wanted to talk to the new owner.
According to the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County Planning Commission site, the property is still under Keenan's ownership, though it's possible the sale occurred today and has not yet been filed.
In the meantime, with affordable housing scarce, residents of James Robertson are making an exit strategy — and faster than ever.
UPDATE, 5:28 p.m.: The new owner is 10th Avenue Multifamily Partners LLC, an entity created for the acquisition by Nashville-based Brookside Properties. The acquisition price was $9.2 million.
