Naples' Gordon River Apartments in River Park sold for $17.5M; residents fear being displaced
Omar Rodríguez Ortiz
Luis Ramírez Nazario was cradling his 1-year-old baby girl on a recent Friday morning when he heard a knock at the front door of his home at the Gordon River Apartments in Naples' River Park East neighborhood.
As he opened the door, he saw a man and a woman smiling and holding copies of tenant notices in their hands.
Effective immediately, Sept. 10, the 95-unit apartment complex, built in 1969, had a new owner, the notice said.
"You will start to see activity very soon, throughout the property, as we move forward with some very exciting improvements and upgrades to the property," the notice said.
It also instructed tenants to make all payments through an online portal that would be available in seven to 10 days. All payments and security deposits made for September, as well as last month's rent made at the time of signing a lease, were transferred to the new owner.
The news caused concern among some Gordon River Apartments residents who fear they may be displaced and drew the ire of the Collier County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.
"Will they raise the rent? Will we be able to afford it?" were some of the questions Ramírez Nazario asked himself.
Gordon River Apartments sold for $17.5M
The Gordon River Apartments sold Sept. 9 for $17.5 million to Naples 1400 LLC of Corridor Ventures, a Connecticut-based real estate investment firm, a warranty deed shows.
"We just sold Gordon River Apartments to Corridor Ventures for $17.5 million yesterday," Jonathan Shechtman, co-founder of New York-based Axonic Properties LLC, wrote in an email earlier this month.
The apartment complex's selling price is approximately 237% more compared to when it was last sold in 2014 for $5.2 million, county records show.
Hagan Brown, co-founder of Corridor Ventures, confirmed his company purchased the apartment complex.
"Yes, we did just purchase Gordon River," he wrote in an email earlier this month.
Corridor Property Management, an affiliate of Corridor Ventures, manages the Jade at Olde Naples 108-unit apartment complex in River Park West, its website says.
Will rent increases displace some Gordon River residents?
Ramírez Nazario, 32, and his wife, Andrea Romero Tenorio, 30, moved in to the Gordon River Apartments two months ago with their baby and are concerned that new improvements to the property may result in rent increases.
"If they raise the rent too high, I can find a newer, bigger place for the same price," Ramírez Nazario said.
But Ramírez Nazario and Romero Tenorio do not want to leave the apartment complex after spending a whole year looking for housing they could afford in Collier County.
Their efficiency-type apartment in Golden Gate Estates was becoming too small for their growing family. Their monthly rent was $700, they said.
Now, they pay $1,100 per month, water included, for a two-bedroom unit at Gordon River Apartments. Romero Tenorio works as a painter for a local construction company, and Ramírez Nazario is a stay-at-home dad, they said.
Their family income is about $1,800 per month, of which approximately 61% goes to rent, Ramírez Nazario said.
Affordable housing is generally defined as housing in which occupants are paying no more than 30% of their gross income for housing costs, including utilities, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
Using that formula Ramírez Nazario's family can afford to pay $540 per month in rent, said Professor Thomas Felke, associate dean of the Marieb College of Health and Human Services at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Felke is also an associate professor within the Department of Social Work, focusing on the use of geographic information systems, or GIS, for program evaluation and research efforts on the needs of seniors, affordable housing and food insecurity.
Families like these are often put in the difficult situation where they have to, for example, choose to pay for rent or their medical bills, Felke said.
"How they are surviving is beyond me," Felke said.
In case you missed it:Naples' Gordon River Apartments in River Park sold for $17.5M
From earlier this year:Naples considering acquisition of Gordon River Apartments in the River Park neighborhood
And:Gordon River Apartments in River Park East in Naples appraised at more than $14M
Felke also cautioned people to not be too quick to judge Ramírez Nazario for choosing to be a stay-at-home dad because child care can be very expensive. Of the total cost to raise a child for middle-income families, on average 16% went to child care and education, according to the 2015 Expenditures on Children by Families annual report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, released in 2017.
Taking a baby to child care may also involve higher transportation costs, less family time and additional stressors that may impact the family, Felke said.
"How are they supposed to do that? How is anybody supposed to do that?" Felke said.
But Ramírez Nazario said they can afford all their basic necessities such as rent, utilities, groceries and medical care for their baby, at least for now.
"We are OK, and we have enough to pay the bills and for what we need," he said.
They also do not want to leave because they like the apartment complex, and its proximity to Romero Tenorio's workplace, the baby's doctor and the Charlie C. Anthony Park, they said.
"I like to walk. I do not want my daughter to be indoors all the time," Romero Tenorio said.
Raúl Gómez, 25, said he is concerned that the new owners might increase the rent of his two-bedroom unit because it is one of several that were renovated in recent years. They moved in two years ago, he said.
Gómez, a pool service technician, said he and his wife pay $1,300 per month in rent, and that they like the apartment because of its centralized location, five minutes away from City Hall.
"If they increase the rent too much, I will go to another place," he said.
Kari Price-Crick, 50, said even a slight rent increase might result in her having to move in with her mother, significantly increasing her driving time to work and transportation expenses. She pays $1,100 for a two-bedroom apartment.
Price-Crick said she loves the apartment complex because it is quiet and safe, and because, unlike other places, it allows her to live with her big dog Koda.
"I am not afraid to be outside at one or two in the morning," she said.
Brown, the co-founder of Corridor Ventures, did not say if the announced improvements and upgrades will result in higher rents. He said the apartment complex will be rebranded as The Cove (at Naples Bay).
"We are in the beginning stages of our business plan, so we will have more information in the upcoming weeks," Brown said Friday.
Under new management: locks replaced, vehicles towed, pets limited
Some residents are also concerned about some of the things the new owners have been doing during their first full week at Gordon River Apartments.
On Thursday morning, Fahlon Johnson-Harris, 37, a mother of three children ages six, 16 and 17, received an alert from her front door security camera. A man was knocking at her front door while her 15-year-old daughter was in the apartment alone.
Tenants had received a notice dated Monday stating staff would enter all apartment units to perform pest and property inspections, check air conditioner filters and change their front door locks, the notice says.
The man replaced the lock and gave her daughter the new keys, Johnson-Harris said.
"I was shocked," she said.
Another tenant notice dated Wednesday stated some rules about parking and pets, but it was directed to the "residents of Jade." It said residents and guests could not park in several reserved parking spaces in front of "the office" on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
On Wednesday, Naples Daily News observed two vehicles being towed from the Gordon River Apartments by the same towing company and several others with no-parking stickers on their windows.
Osiel Barazal, 50, was visiting Johnson-Harris on Tuesday when his car got one of those stickers. He was parked in a parking space reserved for guests, like he always does, he said.
"This is disrespectful. They are exploiting the middle class," Barazal said.
The announced pet rules is another issue of concern for Johnson-Harris, she said. Only one pet is allowed per unit, including service animals, and only if the residents pay pet fees and follow breed restrictions, the notice says.
Johnson-Harris said she has two dogs and a cat, which are not registered according to the new administration, she said. She said they are requesting a $250 pet deposit and a $30 monthly fee per pet.
"I do not want my kids to feel like I am choosing to get rid of the animals," she said.
Like others, a potential rent increase is what worries Johnson-Harris the most. She lives with her kids in a three-bedroom unit, paying $1,275 a month, while earning about $1,600 a month working in a medical office nearby.
In case you missed it:Naples civil rights activist Willie Anthony dies, fought for years to improve lives of others
A staff member told Johnson-Harris her rent would be about $1,550, just $50 less than her monthly salary, starting in January when her lease is due for renovation, she said.
Panicked due to the possibility of ending up homeless, Johnson-Harris looked for a new place to live but could not find anything similar nearby at a price she could afford. She said she recently resigned from her second job at a Dollar Store because she finally felt like one job was enough to provide for her family.
"I can't afford to leave," she said.
Brown, co-founder of Corridor Ventures, declined to say what exactly his staff has been doing during their first full week at the apartment complex.
"We just bought the property, so I do not have any detail to tell you about what they have done so far this week," he said.
Brown also declined to comment in detail on the tenant notices.
"We are working with the residents to create a safe community that is tenant friendly," Brown said.
Naples affordable housing study
In February, the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, voted 6-1 to approve $100,000 for an affordable housing study to:
- Gather in-depth data regarding housing affordability in the area
- Review the city's regulations and recommend ways to promote affordable housing
- Identify funding sources for affordable housing within the CRA District
The CRA was created by City Council in 1994 to, among other things, address the need of affordable housing in the CRA District, which includes River Park East, River Park West, the Naples Square and Bayfront developments, and Baker Park, among others.
The CRA is made up by the members of the Naples City Council.
The study's phase one report, presented to the CRA last month, included two "economically viable" options to preserve affordable housing in the CRA, with a focus on the Gordon River Apartments:
- A "ground-up redevelopment" of the Gordon River Apartments as mixed-income with 185 additional units, for a total of 280 units, of which a minimum of 56 would need to be set aside for households earning about $84,000 or less.
- Acquire and rehabilitate the Gordon River Apartments, with all existing 95 units set aside for families earning about $50,000 or less.
Affordable housing tax credits, tax-exempt bonds and an $8 million cash contribution from the CRA would be required to finance any of these two options, but only the first one requires rezoning because of the additional units that would be added.
In January, a city-paid appraisal of the apartment complex came in at $14.3 million as the city was exploring the possibility of acquiring the Gordon River Apartments.
Everybody who cares about the River Park neighborhoods should be disappointed in the performance of the CRA, said Councilman Ray Christman, who also is chairman of the CRA.
"If you look at the history of the CRA, about 5% of its total capital expenditures have gone to River Park from 1998 to 2019," Christman said Tuesday.
"This is based on our calculation that $1.424 million of CRA capital funds were spent in River Park during this period out of a total of $26.665 million expended," he wrote in an email.
Christman, first elected in 2018, has been the chairman of the CRA since last year.
In order for the city to purchase the Gordon River Apartments for $17.5 million, it would have primarily required borrowed money, Christman said.
"It would not have been realistic at this time," he said.
Christman said the city or the CRA could have bought the property two decades ago, when it was worth a couple of million dollars.
"That looks like it would have been a really smart thing to do at that time," he said.
Affordable housing in Collier County
These residents are not the only ones struggling to find affordable housing in Collier County.
A single, full-time worker earning $17.53 per hour, the county's median wage, can only afford $912 per month in rent and utilities, assuming the household pays 30% of its income for rent, according to the CRA-funded report.
The average monthly rents for assisted housing units in the area, which is when a government program reduces the cost of housing for low- and moderate-income residents, range from $950 to $1,200, while the average rents in the general inventory range from $1,400 to $2,000, the report says.
As of Monday, the Gordon River Apartments' website said its rents range from $1,200 to $1,545 for two and three-bedroom apartments. The website has since then gone offline.
The main risk to the assisted housing stock is loss of affordability due to subsidy expirations and conversion to market-rate housing. Most housing programs impose time-limited income and rent restrictions from 20 to 50 years, the report says.
Between 2010 and 2015, five area developments with 1,088 affordable units exited the assisted housing inventory because the owners opted to only offer market-based rates or because of foreclosures. In 1998, a former owner of the Gordon River Apartments opted out of a HUD subsidy, the CRA report says.
"Older properties may also need rehabilitation to preserve affordability and habitability," the report says.
Often these two factors, subsidy expirations and older properties, go together as the oldest properties are also nearing the end of their original affordability period, the CRA report says.
"Going forward, the main risk to the assisted housing inventory is the expiration of income and rent limits in 1990s-era low-income housing tax credit developments," the report says.
Of 22 assisted housing developments in the Greater Naples area, which does not include Immokalee, three properties with a total of 458 affordable units have affordability periods expiring by 2030:
- Laurel Ridge's 78 units, located in north Golden Gate, expire in 2023
- Whistler's Cove's 240 units, located between Naples Manor and the Lely Resort community, expire in 2029
- Saddlebrook Village's 140 units, located on Davis Boulevard, near Collier Boulevard, expire in 2030
In River Park East, the affordability period of George Washington Carver Apartments' 70 units expires in 2037, and the period of Jasmine Cay's 72 units expires in 2044, the CRA report says.
There is a need for affordable housing across Florida, Felke said.
Between 2000 and 2019, the number of cost-burdened renters in Florida increased by nearly half a million households, according to the 2019 Rental Market Study prepared by the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, established in 1988 at the University of Florida to promote safe, decent and affordable housing.
HUD defines cost-burdened families as those “who pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing” and “may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation and medical care.”
"Renters at all income levels participate in the workforce. Most renter households not in the workforce are made up of older adults or persons with disabilities," the Shimberg report says.
In Southwest Florida, 42% of low-income, cost-burdened renter households are headed by someone age 55 or older, the highest proportion in the state, the CRA report says.
In Collier County, there are 42 assisted housing developments with 4,865 affordable units, representing 12% of the rental housing in the county. Of the 42, only Goodlette Arms Apartments, located north of the Gordon River Apartments off Goodlette-Frank Road, is reserved for seniors, the CRA report says.
"The lack of dedicated housing for older residents is surprising given the need for affordable housing for area seniors," the report says.
Governments need to seriously consider additional tools at their disposal such as raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare, universal child care and improving public transportation, Felke said.
"We are not going to solve this by just addressing affordable housing," Felke said.
NAACP President: 'I am disappointed in the city of Naples'
Vincent Keeys, president of the Collier County chapter of the NAACP, said he was disappointed in the city of Naples.
"I am disappointed in the city of Naples for not taking immediate action to protect, preserve and increase the amount of workforce housing in the city. It is a disgrace that we are only serving the rich, and not the medium- and low-income people," Keeys said after learning about the sale of the Gordon River Apartments.
Keeys is also the secretary of the River Park Community Development Corporation, an organization founded by the late community leader Willie Anthony.
More:Naples civil rights activist Willie Anthony dies, fought for years to improve lives of others
Anthony died last month after spending decades fighting to improve the lives of River Park residents through safe and affordable housing, better infrastructure and the improvement of city-owned facilities.
One of those facilities is the park that Romero Tenorio likes to go with her baby, the Charlie C. Anthony Park, named after Willie Anthony's brother, a Vietnam veteran who lived in River Park and died during the war.
"I know how disappointed he is in his grave," Keeys said about Willie Anthony.
Contact Omar at omar.rodriguezortiz@naplesnews.com, and follow him on Twitter as @Omar_fromPR. Support his work by subscribing to Naples Daily News.