When students signed a lease to live at the new Grove apartment complex, they didn’t expect they’d be paying to live in a hotel.
Taylor Trache, a 20-year-old UF telecommunication junior, moved a quarter of her belongings into the Hilton UF Conference Center on Saturday after she received a call about a day before she was planning to move into the Grove.
“I like to be organized when I start school,” Trache said. “Now I have to live out of a suitcase.”
Students who took out leases at the Grove are currently staying at 10 different hotels, according to Rob Dann, the chief operating officer of Campus Crest, which owns the Grove complex. The hotels include the Hilton, the Hilton Garden Inn and the Best Western, which is more than 8 miles from campus.
The Grove told Trache the latest she’d be staying in the hotel is next Wednesday, but she thinks it will be longer. When she drove by the complex on Sunday, she said the first two buildings looked finished, but the others still had exposed cement, drywall and wooden beams.
“We are working diligently to get the residents in as quickly as possible,” Dann said in an emailed statement.
Trache, who signed her lease in March, thinks the Grove should dock her rent for August.
“It’s stupid,” Trache said. “My rent is very high, and I’m paying for a month of August but I’m not even living there.”
The Grove is paying for her room as well as breakfast and dinner buffets at her hotel’s restaurant.
The Grove is also providing storage pods to students, Dann said, which will be locked and guarded. Trache said she didn’t trust leaving her stuff in a pod because her things might get mixed with another person’s.
Trache doesn’t know how she’ll get to campus. Though Dann said the Grove is providing shuttles, Trache said she doesn’t know how that process works.
She said she doesn’t think the Grove understands the effect this delay has on students and parents. Her dad had to take time off from work to help her move her stuff and is going to drive up again when she moves into her apartment.
Natalie Pan, a 17-year-old UF nutritional sciences freshman, said the worst part is she can’t buy groceries while she’s at the hotel because there’s no fridge.
Pan said she’s staying optimistic but isn’t that worried if she has to stay in the hotel past next Wednesday.
“I don’t mind it,” Pan said. “I love hotels.”
Pan, who’s staying with her roommate in the hotel room, said she didn’t know the Grove was offering storage until she accidentally drove by the units.
“I feel like my stuff’s safe for the most part,” Pan said.
But Trache is still upset.
“The worst part about this is that I have to wait to get my new fish,” she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 8/26/2014 under the headline "The Grove residents displaced"]
