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Regency full of empty promises
Resident complaints point to lax security, lack of real priorities
By Geof Wollerman
gwollerm@mscd.edu

The Regency student housing community – located in a once-condemned hotel that was home to a variety of vagaries, including drug dealing and squatting – may be having trouble escaping its shady past.

Despite repeated promises to the contrary, the remodeled building has yet to install a security gate for its parking lot, leading some residents to complain that not enough is being done to prevent recurring crime.

“The thing about the Regency is that they will offer you a lot up front,” said John Michopoulos, a Regency resident and Metro student, regarding the promised security gate. “The catch phrase is that they’re ‘working on it.’”

Papers for the gate were signed recently, and it will be another six or eight weeks until the gate is completed, said Michael Francone, the Regency’s general manager. The gate is a project conceived after the Regency opened in the fall of 2005, and has been in the works since that time, he said.

“It’s not just as simple as saying, ‘You know what? I want to put a gate in,’” Francone said, adding that there is a process behind it and the city needs to be notified.

“So while people are maybe perceiving that we don’t care – which we absolutely care – they don’t see the stuff that’s happening behind the scenes to move forward on some of these things,” he said.

However, a clerk in Denver’s planning and zoning office, which deals with commercial building permits, checked the city’s records and said there were only two permits on record for projects at the Regency, both of which were completed in 2006.

“I can’t imagine what he’s talking about,” the clerk said, regarding Francone’s assertion that the process takes a while.

Even if the Regency had applied for a permit to put in a security gate, it would have been approved quickly, he said. There is no way, “not in any normal circumstances,” that a permit of that kind would have taken over a year or even months, the clerk said.

“In order to build a gate of this nature you need to plan, design, hire a contractor, etc. This is not a short process,” Francone said, when asked if the Regency had actually obtained a permit for the security gate.

Michopoulos has lived at the Regency since it opened, and the gate has been promised for well over a year, he said. Though security is somewhat better since he first moved in – at least in terms of visibility – he estimated that at one point there was an average of one stolen car and three break-ins every month.

“I drive a pretty crappy little car, but I still take my stereo out when I leave,” Michopoulos said.

Since it opened in fall 2005, the Regency has had a total of eight vehicles reported stolen from its parking lot, and another eight thefts from vehicles, according to Denver Police reports. Together these crimes constitute almost 7 percent of all vehicle crime in the Globeville neighborhood, an area slightly larger than the Five Points neighborhood.

Though his car has never been stolen or broken into, less than two months after he moved in, Michopoulos’ car was damaged when a truck slammed into it in the parking lot, he said. Neither the driver nor its passengers were residents of the Regency.

Another resident and Metro student, A.J. Rankin, had his car stolen Feb. 4 from the parking lot.

“The cameras were pointing directly at it,” Rankin said. “Right out of the lot.”

The Regency’s management told him that the cameras were not able to record the theft, which happened sometime in the middle of the night, because the camera’s motion detector had failed to trigger, Rankin said.

“It’s a little suspicious that it just so happens that at the time my car was stolen the camera wasn’t on,” he said, adding that the Regency should find a better way of monitoring its parking lots.

“(The cameras) should be recording all the time, not activated by motion sensors,” Rankin said.
The building’s management never apologized or offered him any type of compensation for his car, which was eventually found by police miles away in south Denver completely stripped of its parts, he said.

The Regency cannot be responsible for compensating any losses or damages that occur in its parking lot, Francone said. He added that paying to live at the Regency was no different from paying to go to school, and that parking anywhere had its risks.

“That’s a risk you take by parking your car anywhere … the possibility that it could get broken into or stolen. And while it’s unfortunate … we can’t compensate somebody for having it stolen – just like the college wouldn’t do that.”

After his car was stolen, Rankin was angry and wanted to talk to management about the security situation, he said. At a Regency community meeting, he brought it up and was told the problem was being addressed.

“'We’re working on it,’” he said he was told.

Rankin then talked with the head community assistant – who acts as a liaison between residents and management – and was told the security gate was coming in the next two or three weeks, he said. It has been over a month and there is still no sign of a gate, Rankin said.

Both Michopoulos and Rankin pointed out that the Regency’s owners, Robert and Nola Salazar, and their children – who at one point worked in the building – all drive nice cars, such as Mercedes and Land Rovers. They speculated that delays with the security gate are almost certainly not about money.

“It seems like they’re putting their own personal priorities over everybody else’s at the Regency,” Rankin said. “They could be spending their money in so many better ways.”

A security gate would help, Michopoulos and Rankin said, but they also pointed out that part of the fence surrounding the perimeter of the property is chain link and can easily be jumped or cut.

The ideal solution to the security problem would entail not only a security gate and heavy-duty fencing surrounding the entire complex, but also three security guards – one for each building and another for the parking lot – who would be on duty 24 hours a day, Rankin said.

“Granted, we don’t want cars broken into or stolen on our property. We just don’t want that to happen,” Francone said. “But at the same time, all the security measures in the world can’t stop crime from happening.”

Metro criminal justice professor Ralph Rojas agreed about adding the gate, fencing and guards, and also suggested putting up additional security signs and more cameras.

“A gate is only good if you’re going to man it,” he said.

He also suggested that the management and owners of the Regency work with the Denver Police to get more of a presence in the neighborhood.

“The person who is in charge of the building should meet with the chief of police in Denver and say, ‘Listen, we’re a new building … is it possible for your police officers to come around more often?’” Rojas said.

Francone said that the Regency has a great relationship with the Denver Police and that extra patrols are indeed sent around the area at night.

“The police department understands what we’re trying to accomplish here and that we’re changing the neighborhood for the better,” Francone said.

The crime level in the neighborhood unequivocally demanded tighter security, Michopoulos and Rankin said. They mentioned two motels across the street from the Regency, saying that they attracted a less-than-desirable crowd and that crime there was frequent. The police are at the motels several times a week, Rankin said.

“I don’t feel safe with that there,” he said, regarding the motels.

Many of the Regency’s residents are pretty naive about the neighborhood and the crime that goes on there, Michopoulos and Rankin said.

“It’s not like some places in Denver, but it’s definitely not a place you’d want a young girl walking,” Michopoulos said.

The Regency is working hard to improve the area, Francone said.

“We’re doing everything we can to help clean up the neighborhood. … We recently got control of the property right across the street from the motels. We’re putting in a park area there with some nice landscaping. We would love to see the motels go away … to clean up the neighborhood even more,” he said.

People would be more aware of the conditions at the Regency if the management was required to report crime to the campus, but there would also be drawbacks to this, Michopoulos and Rankin said.

“In some ways I like that the Regency doesn’t report crime to the campus because, you know, we’re in college, and we’re going to do some stupid stuff there,” Rankin said. But for other crimes like assault or vehicle theft, he said it would be nice if campus were alerted. “So everybody knows about it. You know, ‘You might not want to live at the Regency because your car might get stolen,’” he said.

The Regency, which calls itself “Auraria’s student housing community,” is not required to report crime to Auraria because it is a private business and has no affiliation with campus, said Dean Wolf, vice president for administration of the Auraria Higher Education Center. The name Auraria is not patented and the Regency has every right to use it, he said.

“We would be kind of curious as to what’s going on there crimewise because we are concerned for our students, but on the other hand, what makes that any different than a student living in an apartment on Capitol Hill?” Wolf said. “The name is the thing that raises some concern.”

The key to living at the Regency was to take everything with a grain of salt, Michopoulos said.

“To us it’s funny, because we just put up with it. There’s nothing we can do about it because we’re just locked into these leases,” he said. “They’re making improvements, but it’s reactionary. You know, it’s the squeaky wheel gets the oil there.”

They mentioned the shady past the Regency had before it was remodeled and became student housing: the drug dealing, the homelessness, the building being condemned because of fire-code violations. The remodel was just like painting over a piece of rotten fruit, Rankin said.

“Sure, you can make it look pretty for a little bit, but it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s still rotten on the inside,” he said.

Michopoulos and Rankin made clear that though the Regency tries to portray itself as a dorm, it’s really just an apartment building for students.

“The biggest thing I could say to anyone that wants to move in is, it’s a business interested in profit,” Michopoulos said.

“And no matter what they say, that’s all it will ever be,” Rankin inserted. “It’s the Regency apartments – for students.”

He pointed out that the amenities the Regency offered – such as the weight room and gym – were great, but were only part of the overall picture.

“It’s nice. Don’t get me wrong. There are some very nice qualities to the Regency,” Rankin said. “But it’s not worth having my dream car stolen.”