An Incomplete 20 year History of the Twenty-One Turtle Creek Condominium

Of all the highrise condominiums on Turtle Creek, The Twenty-One Turtle Creek Condominium has had its share of problems.

When I moved into the Twenty-One Turtle Creek Condominium, the building manager was Shirley Black. Ms. Black was fired and became manager of The Claridge Condominium - The most expensive condominium on the creek. Ms. Black is still the manager at The Claridge. In fact, The Claridge does not have an outside management company. The Claridge is self-managed and Ms. Black has successfully managed The Claridge for almost 20 years..

Apparently, Ms. Black was not the problem at Twenty-One. Obviously Ms. Black is a highly competent manager - especially considering that, to my knowledge, no other highrise condominium on Turtle Creek is self-managed.

During this time, Twenty-One has had 3 management companies and at least 10 managers.

Preventive and on-going maintenance have not been performed on the building in a timely fashion. As a result, pipes for the heating and AC system and the domestic hot and cold water system have deteriorated. The pipes are now fragile and have pinhole leaks.

The pipes could be repaired by a process which lines the pipes with epoxy. Unfortunately, the pipes are getting to the point of being too thin to be renewed using the epoxy coating process. If the epoxy coating cannot be performed, the pipes will have to be replaced.

This problem has been developing for an extended period of time during which pipes have broken and flooded a large number of units. Even flooded units and flooded common areas have not been enough to get the Twenty-One Condominium Board of Directors to fix the problem.

At the moment, the pipe leaks have diminished, but no long-term repair has been implemented.

If you are familiar with high-rise buildings, you know that many of them (including most of the pre-1965 highrises throughout the U. S., and on Turtle Creek have a two-pipe system for heating and air conditioning.

Two-pipe systems are economical to operate and when maintained properly can continue to function indefinitely.

Instead of maintaining the system properly, this system has been allowed to deteriorate while the Twenty-One Board of Directors has bounced from one idea for replacing the system to another, none of which have been implemented.

When I moved into Twenty-One, the staff maintained the plumbing, heating and ac, and electrical systems. They made repairs in the common areas and the individual units. Now, when you need a washer replaced in a faucet, you must call a plumber. The Twenty-One staff knew the building, knew the systems, and knew how to perform basic repairs and maintenance. Now, when a plumber or electrician is called-in by a homeowner, we have no control on how the repairs are done and whether they are done properly.

I (and other homeowners) have asked the management company and the board to replace the windows in the building with thermal pane windows for at least 15 years. This suggestion has been ignored, despite the fact that new windows would have reduced the load on the heating and AC system by approximately 50% - saving money on utilities, reducing the maintenance costs, and reducing the wear and tear on the system.

Had this been done five or ten years ago, it is likely that the existing heating and AC system would be in much better condition and adequate to maintain the comfort of homeowners.

Repairing the balconies and bringing the balcony railings up to code has been discussed for at least 15 years. Luckily, no one has fallen to their death. If this happened, ask yourself how it would play to a jury in a civil lawsuit when the Tewnty-One Condominium board and management had to admit on the stand that the problem with the balconies has been known for at least 15 years.

If you want to see how the Twenty-One board handles things, simply drive under the porte-cochere and take a look at the sidewalk at the main entrance to the building. It was correctly determined that the sidewalk (like that at each side of the main entrance) was unsafe and that people entering the building could slip and fall, injuring themselves. The solution was to replace the sidewalk with died concrete stamped to look like brick. In my opinion, and that of other homeowners, this installation is an eye-sore.

Here's another example: Each floor has a laundry room with a washer and a dryer. Recently, without consulting the homeowners, the large sinks were removed from the laundry rooms. As a result, there is no place to rinse out an item before placing it in a washer or to wash soap or bleach from your hands if you get some on your hands. To my knowledge, an explanation for the removal of these sinks has never been offered, nor were the homeowners given an opportunity to state whether or not they wanted the sinks to remain.

When the Worth Ross & Associates management company took over management, the building's maintenance, cleaning,  garage, and security staff were fired and replaced with people provided by temp agencies who have no benefits and high turnover. Some of the employees had worked for us in our building for more than 20 years, and a few for over 25 years. The Twenty-One board took this life-changing action without consulting the homeowners.