Students can start signing leases Feb. 9 to live in St. James Apartment Complex, but the system will look very different than in previous years.
Greg Colwell, who took over management of St. James in July, has instituted individual leasing.
“You are only responsible for your portion of the lease, so if any of your roommates don’t pay their portion, it’s not your problem,” Colwell said. “It’s very beneficial to the students in that way.”
Colwell also set up leasing for students who will be studying abroad or graduating early.
“We can sign you to a 7-month lease, so you can save somewhere from $1,100 to about $2,300,” Colwell said.
In previous years, students could start renewing leases for St. James in September, but Colwell changed that.
“I decided that was way too early,” Colwell said. “We want to give people time to settle into the school year, which is why we waited until January. We are also giving students an opportunity to renew later … [as late as] the week before school starts.”
Under the previous management, Cambridge Property Management, students signed leases for specific apartments, so they could choose and were guaranteed the apartment they signed for. With Colwell, the leases will no longer guarantee a specific address.
This aspect of the new system has some students worried about being able to keep their current St. James apartment.
“The fact that they wouldn’t grandfather people in doesn’t make sense to me,” junior sports communication major Andrew Hegseth said. “If you already live somewhere, you should be able to continue living there. I’m not living here next year, but if I was, I’ve lived [in my apartment] for two years, so for my senior year I wouldn’t be promised the same apartment, which is ridiculous.”
However, Colwell doesn’t anticipate problems.
“When people come in to sign leases and they say, ‘I’d like to stay living where I’m at,’ or, ‘I’d like to have a third floor apartment or to live in this building,’ we take those requests … and then we try to make them happen as best we can,” Colwell said. “Our goal is to always have people return in their same apartments. That makes the most sense for everyone.”
Students also said they are concerned about not being guaranteed their requested roommates under this system, but Colwell said it is his intention to room people with whom they want to live with.
“It works kind of like how they match people up in the residence halls,” Colwell said. “You have a roommate request, and 99 percent of the time you get that.”
Still, some students said they are wary of accepting the leasing changes.
“I think [these new rules] will definitely hurt people who are already living here and are living here again next year,” Hegseth said. “When you have to compare it to how good everything worked before, then it really is an issue.”
Colwell said he has taken many approaches to informing students of the new leasing rules, such as monthly newsletters, flyers on resident’s doors and Facebook and Twitter posts, but some students said the changes are still unclear.
“At first, they did send out an email saying, ‘Okay, we’ve switched management,’ but they didn’t explain any of the changes,” Jen Peterson, a junior journalism major, said. “Other than that, everything I’ve learned has been word of mouth of people who have gone to the offices to sign their lease, and they say everything is so different, I don’t even want to go in and try to sign a lease.”
Changes with this new management are not limited to the leasing, Colwell has also instituted a different approach to maintenance.
“We aren’t 100 percent privy to everything Cambridge did, but we are trying to bring more of a customer service atmosphere to [St. James],” Colwell said. “We have student staff [and] 24-hour maintenance staff. We’ve tried to get more availability for the students.”
Some students said they have noticed this change in maintenance.
“This is my first year in St. James, but from what I’ve heard, maintenance took forever last year,” Peterson said. “We have not had that problem. We send in our requests, and they come right away.”
Peterson said she hopes time will allow students to get used to the new management as management smooths out its processes.
“It’ll be interesting to see what happens next year because it’s [the new management’s] first year, so not everything is going to be the way they exactly want it,” Peterson said. “I feel like next year is going to be a big change.”
