UMKC says this $40 million student housing was so poorly built it must be torn down
The University of Missouri-Kansas City student apartment building that was shut down two years ago due to unsafe living conditions cannot be fixed and must be demolished, officials announced Wednesday.
Repairing the Oak Place Apartments, 5050 Oak St., “is not viable,” officials said in a statement, so both housing wings will be torn down this summer as well as associated retail space. The building’s parking garage will stay.
A university lawsuit against the building’s construction and design companies is moving forward, officials said.
“Preserving and repairing Oak Place would have been the preferred outcome,” the statement said. “However, ongoing inspections related to the lawsuit revealed even more extensive damage than previously known.”
Now campus leaders intend to develop new plans “for much-needed affordable student housing and retail on the site,” the statement said.
UMKC shut down the apartments in 2018 after a series of student complaints of major leaks from pipes, sagging floors and mold problems. That March, University of Missouri curators filed a lawsuit against Gould Evans Associates, JE Dunn Construction and other companies, claiming they were “reckless” in the way they designed and constructed the building.
The lawsuit accused the companies of ignoring design problems that led to the troubles. The university said Wednesday that it had reached a settlement agreement with insurance carriers this month, but it did not release details.
Chancellor Mauli Agrawal has authorized a student housing study to determine what is needed.
Agrawal said that plans to extend the Kansas City streetcar to the area of the site will open up new opportunities for development.
Oak Place Apartments opened in summer 2008 after construction crews demolished the dilapidated Twin Oaks apartments, which had stood on the site nearly 60 years.
Oak Place included one-, two- and four-bedroom apartments and initially opened to about 500 UMKC students.
It was built by a private developer, which leased the land through a public/private deal that was considered an innovative arrangement at the time. UMKC purchased the building in 2012 for $40.8 million.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 5:50 PM.
