The Bartram was Marissa Gainsburg’s home, her personal resort.
She thought she’d live there until graduation, but now she and the other 500 residents are scrambling to find somewhere else to live.
Gainsburg, a journalism junior at UF, doesn’t want to move, but she doesn’t have a choice.
The Bartram told its residents Monday that leases would not be renewed, and many of them are set to end Aug. 31.
The complex, which is home to many UF graduate and law students, needs repairs to the roof and the outsides of buildings because they were not built properly, and management doesn’t want to do the repairs with people in the buildings.
“We’re still in a state of disbelief,” Gainsburg said. “I’m really frustrated, but more than anything I’m sad. I don’t want to leave The Bartram.”
The news comes as a byproduct of a lawsuit The Bartram filed against the construction company that built the complex.
The apartment management has decided it will not wait until the lawsuit is finished to start repairs, but is not known when construction will start or end.
Gainsburg said she wishes she was warned earlier in the semester to sign a lease elsewhere.
But she said there are other people in a worse situation, including students who work in the management office.
“You have to look at it this way: These people are out of a job now,” she said. “There are families that live at the Bartram who have little kids who now have to find another place, too.”
Apartment management could not confirm whether any Bartram employees will lose their jobs.
Jonathan Rodriguez doesn’t know where he and his dogs will go.
Many people who lived at The Bartram were dog lovers, said Rodriguez, a biology sophomore at UF.
There is a dog park at the complex where his dogs, Farah and Aaralyn, could run around.
He said he is upset with the corporate management.
“How do you build a place and not check if it’s up to regulation?” he said.
Rodriguez and his sister renewed their lease earlier in the year.
It expires in January, and the apartment management promised to make accommodations for them and any other resident whose lease expires after the summer.
“Hopefully that means they’ll find us an apartment,” he said.
Gainsburg is on a waiting list for the nearby Wildflower Apartments, but she said she probably won’t find as nice of a place for the same $620 monthly rent.
She said her rent was a great deal for the features it included, like granite countertops, a tranquility garden and a 24-hour gym.
“It’s too good to be true,” she said. “Of course there’s a problem.”
