Tag Archives: apartment complex

local news

Complex isn’t coming down after all … yet!

I guess I got a bit ahead of myself in suggesting that demolition work had begun on that monstrosity of an apartment complex on US 380 in Princeton.

The Princeton Housing Standards Authority — aka the City Council — voted 3-2 Thursday evening to order completion of several rotting structures, even as crews began razing three buildings “to the slab.”  Even those structures, deemed irreparable, could come back to life.

I don’t know about the wisdom of that decision.

The complex has sat there unfinished for more than a year, exposed to North Texas’s occasionally harsh weather. Mold and water damage run rampant through the 300-unit apartment complex.

The developer has a deadline to get the work done. Some buyers are lined up to possibly purchase the site next to Wal-Mart on the south side of US 380.

Folks, it still looks like a mess to me.

I’ll have more to say later on the location and whether it is even wise to have such a huge apartment complex on a thoroughfare that already is choked with stand-still traffic.

Sorry I jumped the gun.

local news

Monstrosity on its way down!

All the yammering around Princeton regarding that 300-unit apartment complex that has gone to serious seed must have been heard by those who needed to hear it.

I just noticed crews at work taking down several of the buildings. And this is in advance of a public meeting set for this evening at Princeton Municipal Complex to discuss the future of the site.

It looks to me as if its future might have been decided. The demolition underway involves the razing of three structures deemed damaged beyond repair. There’s too much mold and water damage to the buildings to save them. So … they’re coming down!

The City Council is meeting as the city’s Housing Standards Authority. It will discuss the various — and numerous — code violations that render the site unworkable.

I am one of many Princeton residents who is delighted to see the work commence to rid the city of this monumental eyesore created when the contractor walked off the job after getting into a snit with the developer.

We’ll just have to stand by while the work continues and see what in the name of civic improvement occurs with the site on US 380.

Keep pounding away, fellas.

local news

Ticking has begun on montrosity

That ticking sound you might hear if you’re driving along US 380 in Princeton could be the sound of the clock winding down on a project that has been stalled for more than a year.

It is a huge “luxury apartment” complex of buildings next to Wal-Mart that has gone fallow. The city’s code compliance department is preparing an analysis of the project to determine whether it is out of compliance. My guess? It damn sure is.

According to the Princeton Herald: The notice from a city building official called the apartments a “substandard structure, constitution public nuisance and hazard to public health, safety and welfare.”

The notice also said, “the substandard, dilapidated structure(s) on the property needs to be vacated, secured, repaired and brought into compliance, removed or demolished.”

The developer who got into a big-time snit with the contractor — who walked off the job — had until June 16 to bring the site into compliance. He didn’t make the grade.

Now well might be the next step, which would be to take action to remove this massive eyesore from our line of sight.

That is all right with me.

Mother Nature has pummeled the half-built apartment complex with wind, rain, hail, extreme heat and extreme cold., Many of the interior structures likely are damaged beyond repair.

I happen to believe it is time for the complex to come down!