Problems delay opening of new apartments

A new eight-story apartment building with an underground parking facility might not be completed by the expected date in August -- a development some tenants said they were never notified about.

Through rumors, Tracy Schneider (senior-psychology and Spanish) said she learned Nicholas Tower, 301 S. Pugh St., would not be completed by August 1997. She said she went to the Apartment Store, 444 E. College Ave., to inquire about the status of the building and received confirmation of the rumors.

Construction is behind schedule, said Fred Nicholas, co-owner and general contractor of Nicholas Tower.

"We ran into limestone voids which we had to fill up with concrete," Nicholas said.

The incident occurred during the construction of the underground parking garage, and as a result, time was lost and the whole project may be delayed, Nicholas said.

"The amount of the problem was a little more than we expected," said Bruce Heim, co-owner of Nicholas Tower and president of Keystone Real Estate Group, 444 E. College Ave. "You have to build a good foundation for your building to make sure that the rest of the building is good."

Nicholas Tower is located on South Pugh Street between East Foster Avenue and East Nittany Avenue in downtown State College.

"The geology under the site was such that it created a lot of problems," Heim said. "It still might be done sometime in July, but we just don't want the kids to count on us."

Nicholas Tower, when completed, will hold 80 apartments -- 68 two-bedroom and 12 one-bedroom -- housing about 300 people, Nicholas said.

So far, people expecting to live in 20 of the 80 apartments have decided not to rent for next year and those expecting to live in the other 60 have decided to continue or have made no decision to cancel yet, Heim said. Tenants who chose to move in when construction is finished are being offered free rent until January 1998.

The opening may occur in October, Heim said.

"There's no guarantees," he said, "There's too much that could go wrong in the terms of weather."

Although students are being offered compensation in the form of free rent, some remain unhappy with the situation.

"Just the whole way they handled it was very unprofessional," Nicole Bryant (senior-telecommunications) said.

Bryant said she planned to live with Schneider and a few other female students in Nicholas Tower.

- Bruce Heim
co-owner of Nicholas Tower

Around Jan. 13, Heim said, the day after his agency became aware of the construction problem, they began phoning residents to notify them about the situation.

"This was not being hidden," Heim said. "We were not giving a head fake to anybody."

From 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Heim said his agency called future residents informing them of the situation and their options.

"Kids are gone sometimes more than they're around," he said. "We had no more magic than anybody else in terms of making contact with the students."

Yet some students like Schneider said they still have not received a phone call. "It's just not good business ethics and for them not even to call us it's unprofessional," she said.

Bryant and Schneider said they were more upset because they never received a phone call than they were about the construction delay.

Because many bigger apartments for four or five people have already been leased for next fall, Schneider said she will not be able to live near her friends. Now, instead of living at Nicholas Tower, she said she will be living at Penn Tower, 255 E. Beaver Ave.

"It's not at all what we wanted," Schneider said, "but it's going to have to do."