It always comes back to parking, doesn't it? A USC architecture student hoping to call the Grand Lofts home has found his dreams of downtown living dashed as promised parking for Grand Lofts evaporated before his very eyes. Plans for an adjacent property that was to be developed with a parking garage below a high rise condominium have fallen through. Each unit in Grand Lofts was told they would get two parking spaces in that as-yet-to-be-built parking garage. Sorry Grand Loftees, you got punk'd.
Just yesterday, after we had wired the final payment, we received a contract from Lee Homes that had to be signed, sent back and faxed back within 3 hours. Hidden within this 200 page document were a few paragraphs that basically said - and i'll summarize here - we wouldn't be guaranteed (sp) the two parking spaces we were told each unit would have and signing this document would release Lee Homes from any liability. We learned that Lee Homes, who owned the property adjacent to the Grand Loft property, no longer own it. The person who owns the property now isn't required to build a parking structure there or if he did build one, parking for the 66 Grand Loft units.
Luckily, we were able to put a stop on our wire transfer and have since been trying to contact Jeff Lee, the head of Lee Homes.
We noticed it was taking an unusally long time to get the certificate of occupancy after we did our inital walkthrough. The building was pretty much complete but everything seemed to be standing still. What we've realised now is that the parking is what was holding up the certificate of occupancy. The way I understand it, The Lee group has made an arrangement with the owner of the vacant lots of each side of the property to provide us with parking or a parking structure by 2008. Where is gets shady is where it says this agreement is between the Lee Group and this licensor and once the Lee Group closes the last unit, the property will be handed over to the homeowners association and the Lee Group will have nothing else to do with the property. Basically, the deal is with the Lee Group and once he give up the building, the licensor doesn't have to grant us parking anymore. It's a pretty shady way of getting the necessary parking to acquire certificate of occupancy.
Moral of the story: Always read the fine print!
· Trouble with Grand Lofts [SkyscraperCity Forum]