Six months after Minneapolis pressured one of its worst landlords to sell 38 apartment buildings, city inspectors report a dramatic drop in tenant complaints and maintenance violations. But problems persist in some of the worst properties, where low-income tenants and a community leader are still waiting for a turnaround.
Over five years, city inspectors logged 2,131 code violations against landlord Spiros Zorbalas before a deal was announced last January to transfer the properties. So far this year, the city has issued 61 violations for the properties, now owned by developer Steve Frenz.
"The indicators are showing that Steve is actually making good progress," said JoAnn Velde, the city's housing inspections services manager. "And that's what I've heard from the inspectors, too."
In poorer neighborhoods, however, six tenants interviewed by the Star Tribune said that they still have problems in their buildings, including cockroaches, mold and lack of heat. Many of those residents speak only Spanish, but Frenz's office has no one taking calls who is fluent in the language.
"In checking in with some of the tenants in the properties, we don't really see any change so far," said Eric Gustafson, executive director of the Corcoran Neighborhood Organization. Among the seven former Zorbalas properties in Corcoran, Gustafson cited examples of peeling paint, exterior exposed wiring and a faulty front door.
Taking on some of Minneapolis' most notorious rental properties was a big undertaking for Frenz, who runs the Apartment Shop management company. Frenz said in mid-June that he had completed more than 4,200 work orders, worked through 289 leftover from the Zorbalas era and had only 68 outstanding. "We've done a fantastic job of addressing [issues] on a real-time basis," he said.
Frenz now oversees about 1,400 units, twice what he had before. That includes the 750 former Zorbalas apartments scattered across south Minneapolis, from solid and elegant Uptown buildings housing twenty-something professionals to newer but more rundown apartments further east that cater to working-class immigrants.
Tenant Yojana Solares said she hasn't seen any change in the upkeep of her building on 22nd Avenue S., a street that is home to five former Zorbalas buildings. She said she has complained about cockroaches, a broken stove, mold growing in her bathroom and heating failures.