The homeowners association at The Bristol West End is taking the condo project's developer, architect, engineering firm and geotechnical service to court, alleging an "inexcusable failure" in the project's design.
The HOA claims a serious design flaw in a suit filed last week by the HOA against 17 defendants in Davidson County Chancery Court.
According to the suit, cracks began to appear in various common areas in the project in late 2009, four years after the building opened its doors to residents.
Bristol Development Group already had two strikes against it around these parts. First, Madison Square HOA grew frustrated with the company over the future Vista Germantown site, and they asserted that Bristol neglected to keep an abandoned warehouse boarded up or the grass cut to codes requirements until squatters set the building on fire. Second, a bank saved Bristol from the embarrassment of bankruptcy by taking over their faltering Velocity project in The Gulch with a "friendly foreclosure."
For Germantown's sake let's hope that allegations like those on West End do not crop up around the Vista Germantown project after completion.
Let's start with the name:
ReplyDelete"Vista Germantown."
It just doesn't ring right.
Why do developers like Tony Giarratana (The Viridian) feel compelled to stomp us with such "grand" sounding names?
It's probably because they need to stomp (overly impress) a few other people -- like banks, financiers, metro-council, the city administration, etc, in order to get such current and future projects built.
Velocity, regardless of practical or financial success, is now part of the Nashville vernacular. Can you imagine being a Dean assistant and sitting at lunch with some of the Vista Germantown developers, when the name "Velocity" is tossed out?
Yeah, you may have a friend living there who has complained about various aspects of the building, but when the folks around the table nod yes and say, "Oh, Velocity! How wonderful!" what are you gonna do? Say, "My friend lives there and has had plumbing and HVAC problems." No, you're gonna nod too, and smile whenever "Velocity" is mentioned.
These guys are all a show. And it starts with the name. And some cheap tag-line:
"Mr. Mayor, Vista Germantown overlooks our wonderful downtown. And it also looks into the future of the urban living concept that is the Nashville to come."
The business elite and city administration then take these project names and tag-lines and then wrap them in some economic numbers provided by the Chamber of Commerce.
Before you know it, we've knocked down a neighborhood that could have developed organically over the next decade.
And its place, a "vista."
I've worked for a variety of mostly residential developers of homes and very small condo complexes. There are those who do it right, like putting up proper and required barricades, porta-potties, running clean job-sites and paying treating sub-contractors fairly and paying them on time. They also do things like making sure their properties fit into the neighborhood. I've worked with other who cut corners where ever they can just so they cam make a few extra dollars when they sell.
ReplyDeleteI see bad signs above on the little things like not cutting the grass and not taking care of the warehouse. Developers like this also cut corners throughout the building process so it does not suprise me problems are arising.
I have the advantage of seeing such things from the inside. I'm not sure the solution but people should be held accountable.
Of the few commercial projects i have worked on, cutting corners tends to be worse.
i own at velocity.
ReplyDeletei asked them to fix the flashing and capstones on my balcony while doing my walkthrough. they never did. a year later i asked again...hoping it would be done before the one year warranty would be up. it still was not done. my balcony has cracks and the capstones/flashing were never fixed. sad to know that they covered their own ass to get out of the problem and left us out in the cold.
If your interested in documented evidence of how this developer has handled another development go to Facebook and request group status to "Velocity Homeowners" or view the public page "Save my Investment in Velocity and Gulch". "Something very fishy is going on here......"
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