GrandMarc Not Recommended At UC Riverside

Last week Assistant Vice President Gagnon and I attended a public meeting about the re-proposed GrandMarc on St. Boltoph Street. Also in attendance from Northeastern was Ryan Fox, who will be SGA Vice President for Student Services starting tomorrow; Robert Ranley who will be SGA President starting tomorrow; and Jeff Doggett, who is Northeastern's Director of Government Relations & Community Affairs. Cut down to 24 stories, and with a capacity of about 800, there are still many community concerns over the proposal. (Unfortunately, photos and renderings of the new design are not yet available in electronic format for us -- but you can see the old ones at this website.)

The GrandMarc proposed for St. Boltoph's Street is not an entirely new concept. There are a couple other GrandMarc's in the country. One of them is located near the University of California - Riverside. The building, called GrandMarc at University Village, is not recommended by current and previous students who lived in the building. In fact, 78% of students who posted reviews of the building at ApartmentRatings.com said "No" when asked if they would recommend the building to others. While this alone is an indication of the problems related to the GrandMarc and its management companies, the specific issues mentioned in some of the reviews are even worse.

One student, who actually recommended the building, wrote about some of the security problems with the building:

The gate is usually broken which means that ANYONE can come in and do anything. There are frequent break-ins for the people who live on the 1st floor.

Clearly, the safety of students is a priority for us in the Resident Student Association. Our campus ranked #2 in safety in the nation in Reader's Digest. While the proponents of the GrandMarc at St. Boltoph's Street claim they will provide a secure environment where students will be safe, their performance record at UC Riverside is concerning. Another reviewer wrote about the theft issues, saying:

Terrible place to live. No security, lots of things get stolen.

Yet another reviewer wrote about security issues with their door lock, and the lack of response to correct it:

The locks on the doors to your individual rooms serve no purpose since me and my roomate found out that all you need is a plastic card to pick the lock and open the door. On top of that, somehow the lock on our front door broke, and all u had to do was turn the handle and it openend right up. It took maintenance a week to finally come by and fix it.

The GrandMarc at UC Riverside

More concerning is the number of students who wrote about issues with the building's management. I've heard bad stories about student experiences with Housing and Residential Life at Northeastern, but some of the reviews about the GrandMarc at UC Riverside are horror stories compared to the problems students have had at Northeastern. One student wrote about how management lied to them about the amenities of the building:

I had nothing but problems from the moment I moved in. First of all, I was told that internet access and parking for myself and my guests were included in the rent. A few months later, I was told that to get a parking space close to my apartment I would have to pay $15. Also, my guests had to park all the way across the street or they would get their car towed. Tow trucks are part of the parking lot scenery. The internet that was promised cost me 15 additional dollars a month. And the place is filthy! They clean it maybe twice a year when offering tours for prospective residents. And don't count on management to help you with any problems or issues you have. Please don't live here!

Another student wrote about how management was difficult to find or help residents:

The office assistants at GrandMarc seemed to be only trained in getting people to sign contrats to live here and little else. Customer service is great for prospective customers but once you live here there is no help to be found. Management are somehow always busy or away on extended lunches/breaks.

As a representative of the students who live on-campus at Northeastern, I would hate to see any student leave Northeastern University housing for someplace like the GrandMarc. Additionally, many community members oppose the building and attended last week's meeting to say so. The track record of the company behind this is not good. If they can't manage a set of four-story buildings for student housing well, why should the community and students trust them to manage a 24-story building? Even worse was the refusal of the GrandMarc's proponents to provide straight answers to questions from community members and from the Resident Student Association. It seems that the best solution for both students and the local community will be for the Boston Redevelopment Authority to join with the community and reject this building.