Residents And Disability Activists Demand Change
by Megan Carthel
Twenty-four floors high in the sky, the 4550 Cherry Creek luxury apartments in Glendale, have stood tall, but for some residents, the building is falling short. The skyscraper apartment complex was built in 2002, as the first truly luxurious rental property in Glendale. Its massive outline dominates the skyline along Cherry Creek Drive and its height so chagrined Glendale residents that the city revised its Zoning Code to impose height limits.
Tall Prison
But now the 24-story building has at times become a virtual prison for some residents as its elevator system has become a nightmare. For those inside the elevators when they break down, it means waiting seemingly endless hours until the City of Glendale can come rescue them. For residents who are disabled with mobility challenges they are trapped in their apartments or simply cannot return to their apartment homes for hours on end.
Longtime residents say they can point to the day when all the problems began — January 12, 2011. On that day sprinkler lines on the 18th and 2nd floors broke, causing water to run down the elevator shafts, resulting in extensive damage.
The elevators have never been the same. Since that date there have been 13 calls to the Glendale Police and the Fire Department regarding people trapped in the elevators. From November 2014 to July of this year alone the City of Glendale has had to make seven rescues from the elevators at 4550.
Threatened Lawsuit
But it is not simply the residents trapped in the elevators themselves that are affected. Resident Jessica Peck has progressive vascular malformations and reflexive sympathetic dystrophy. In 2015, treatment led to extreme and sudden bone loss culminating in an amputation below the knee on her left leg. Peck said all four elevators were down when she came home one evening. Her two daughters, ages eight and 11, were in their unit, 11 flights up. Peck had to hop on one leg up 11 flights of stairs to reach her kids.
“I thought if I fall I’m dead,” Peck said. Only days later, Peck was in the hospital with inflammation of cartilage in the breast plate. In April of this year she was diagnosed with pulmonary embolisms.
“To me, as an attorney, as a disability activist, to be in a position where I am scared of retaliation and I am honestly hurt to my core. I have a thick skin, but living in this environment every day is being told that I don’t matter, that my children don’t matter, and they don’t care if I get injured,” Peck said.
Peck has retained one of Colorado’s most famous and feared litigators David Lane of Killmer, Lane & Newman, LLP who is investigating bringing suit under Federal statutes if the problems are not fixed.
“Under ADA they have to reasonably accommodate people with disabilities, meaning they have to provide access to people with disabilities — curb cuts are required by law, working elevators are required by law, handicapped access doors which can be opened by pushing a button have to be working by law, they have to have parking spots for disabled people by law, they do none of the above on a regular basis,” Lane said.
Lane and Peck would be filing suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act and Warranty of Habitability.
Elevator Background
Mike Pattison, Denver branch manager for Kone, the company that installed and maintains the elevators, said his crew members are contracted to perform preventative maintenance weekly on the elevators.
“Our guys are out there all the time,” Pattison said.
Pattison said the elevators in 4550 are four-geared traction passenger cars with a mipromST control system. He said hundreds were installed in 2002 and 2003, but are no longer being currently installed. Pattison said to upgrade the elevator system, it would cost between $175,000 to $250,000 per elevator.
Chuck Line, Glendale Deputy City Manager, said usually elevators shut down because a safety feature responded to an error.
“From a safety point of view, every time we go, all the safety mechanisms are functioning perfectly and everything, but there’s a big difference between safety of an elevator and operationally if it’s reliable or not. Because if it’s unreliable, it means its safety mechanism has kicked in, but it means maybe they’re not maintaining it to the degree that they should,” Line said.
Upset Residents
Tina Roussin has had to walk up 17 flights of stairs with groceries when all four elevators were down, a frequent event according to her. She was once stuck in an elevator early in the morning after taking her dog outside. The elevator she was in does not have a call phone or button, and she did not have her phone on her. Roussin said she began kicking and yelling in hopes someone would hear she was trapped. Eventually the elevator returned to the first floor. When Roussin brought her incident to management, she said she received a less than satisfactory answer.
“I was told you need to make sure you have your phone on you when you go on the elevator,” Roussin said.
Elevators are inspected twice a year. Randy Pabst, elevator inspector with Colorado Consulting Code, said a two-way communication system is required that can dial a 24-hour service such as the elevator maintenance contractor, 9-1-1 or an answering service for security company.
This is not Roussin’s only run-in with the elevators. Her dog’s leash got caught in the elevator doors and was suspended from the top of the elevator, hanging there until the leash broke while Roussin tried to free her dog, Chloe. Another resident who is afraid of retaliation from the complex in the form of rent price raises who wanted to keep her identity private, said the elevators are a major issue.
“This is supposed to be a luxury building, it’s not inexpensive to live here and we should have a reasonable expectation that we can go up and down 24 floors on at least one elevator all the time,” the resident said. “I lived in Manhattan for a long time and these are the kinds of issues that come up with slumlords in New York.”
The residents said in general they like living at 4550 and praise concierge and front office workers in general but many have a problem with the management company Monogram Apartment Collection. The owner of the building, according to the real estate records of Arapahoe County, is Behringer Harvard Cherry Creek out of Dallas, Texas, who acquired the building in 2010 for $52 million. The seller Sentinel lost $26 million on the sale from its purchase price of $78 million in 2005.
Resident Kandie Landers told the Chronicle, “When a building has 24 floors, having the elevators down as frequently as they do is inexcusable . . . . Other than th
e elevator issue, I have been extremely pleased with the community.” She notes, however, that “the management really needs to invest in getting the elevators fixed and/or replaced.”
Management Response
According to Peck and her attorney David Lane, the time for 4550 to voluntarily perform the needed work may be running out.
In an email statement sent to the Chronicle, the management company Monogram Apartment Collection stated, “At [4550] Cherry Creek, we’re committed to providing the highest quality service for our residents. When a resident has a concern, we maintain a culture of transparency by communicating how we are remedying the situation. Our residents shared feedback around the need to update our elevators, so we are in the process of replacing the mechanical systems in all four elevators. We anticipate starting work very soon and are doing everything we can to ensure that this long and complex process is as painless as possible.”
