Like clockwork, Social 28 tenants awake to their daily alarm — hammering, drilling and shouting. While the tenants’ clocks read 7:30 a.m., their rooms still appear as if it were midnight.
March marked the tenth straight month of construction on Social 28, an off-campus student apartment complex built in 2015, located directly across the street from UF’s College of the Arts.
The ongoing construction, done by multiple licensed third-party contractors and Centex Construction as the general contractor, involves renovations to amenities such as the gym, pool and study rooms, and exterior improvements like window and balcony replacements.
Tenants said they were not informed of the planned construction when they signed their leases. However, their leases included a clause that allows Social 28 to do construction without informing residents beforehand.
Some tenants said they have not been given a clear answer on the projected end of construction and are fed up with the lack of clear communication by management.
Nishra Kothari, a 19-year-old UF finance sophomore, moved into a four-bedroom unit at Social 28 in August 2025. She said construction ramped up on her side of the building after returning from winter break. The windows of every bedroom in her unit have been boarded up with plywood by the construction workers since the second week of the Spring semester, she said.
In an email sent to The Alligator on March 3, Social 28 regional manager Angelina Mercurio said after B.HOM Student Living acquired the complex, the ownership made plans for a multimillion-dollar investment to replace the entire exterior of both buildings. This involved boarding up residents’ windows for temporary protective measures. Mercurio added the boards were removed as soon as each portion of work was completed.
Renovations are expected to be completed within the next couple of weeks for the South building, while the North building will be under construction until at least mid-May, she said.
Throughout the renovations, Mercurio said, Social 28 has provided weekly communication about construction through multiple means like emails, on-site signage and direct outreach by management. She said there is on-site management to answer residents’ questions about construction, and the company is focused on remaining transparent while providing consistent updates.
Social 28 did not respond to further emails asking for comment on specific incidents reported by residents, such as alleged harassment by construction workers and debris left in bedrooms.
Interactions with construction workers
Some tenants said they felt uncomfortable with construction workers constantly outside of their windows. Alaina Campagna, an 18-year-old UF microbiology and cell science freshman, said her roommate lodged a harassment complaint about their behavior.
In the complaint, which was shared with The Alligator, the tenant wrote a construction worker scraped a smiley face into the paint that construction covered her window with. She then saw the worker look into her room around 10:30 a.m. Campagna said her roommate immediately called her father and went to the leasing office to report the incident.
In a second complaint filed six days later, which was also shared with The Alligator, the tenant wrote that she found four total smiley faces scraped into her window after returning from a three-day trip. The tenant also said a construction worker shined a flashlight through her window and looked around her room shortly before 8 a.m.
In both complaints, she asked management, “Is there any way I can feel safe in my own room?”
The tenant said she never received a response to her emails but spoke to Social 28 management in person, who referred her to the management of the construction company. When she spoke with them, she said they apologized and said they would speak with the workers. She said no incident has occurred since.
Campagna said the incidents scared all of her roommates at first. Now, when construction workers are outside her window, she said she closes her blinds and puts in earbuds.
“It got to the point where I got used to it,” Campagna said. “Which is not a good thing.… It should be scary.”
She said construction covered her window with paint from August to late November last year, blocking out any natural light. To know if it was raining, she said she had to go outside the apartment building.
“It felt like I was living in a cave for most of my first semester, and it made me just not want to live here or not want to be here,” Campagna said.
Abigail Cowling, a 20-year-old UF business administration sophomore, said she and her roommate had issues with the construction workers’ conduct as well. The first week after Fall move-in, she said her roommate told her a construction worker entered both of their bedrooms through their windows.
Cowling’s roommate had been sleeping in her bedroom when the worker climbed in through her window. Cowling was in class when the entry occurred, but said she found wood and paint chips all over her clothes and bags. Neither Cowling nor her roommate had advance notice the construction workers would be entering their unit. After the two reported the incident, Cowling said management started sending emails with a timeframe of when construction workers would need access to tenants’ apartments.
However, Cowling said miscommunications over construction timelines still occur.
“It seems like nobody actually knows what’s going on,” Cowling said.
Construction also extended to the complex’s parking garage, according to a letter Social 28 sent to tenants shared with The Alligator. The letter informed residents they could not park in their assigned space from Feb. 23-27 because of renovations and instead should park in guest spots on a first-come, first-served basis. Social 28 said it would offer reimbursements for reasonable expenses related to alternative parking arrangements.
Isabella Mastrson, a 20-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology sophomore, said she pays $250 per month for a secure parking spot, but the garage’s system has been broken since November 2025. She said she is frustrated by the way Social 28 is handling the situation.
“I don't want to have to now find another parking spot,” Mastrson said. “It's just another inconvenience to throw onto everything.”
Noise and flooding: ‘It really stresses me out bad’
Another frustrating aspect for Mastrson was the constant construction noise on her side of the building during October and November 2025. She said she wore soundproof Beats headphones, blasting music or white noise at full volume, to block out the construction noise when sleeping. Still, she said she was woken up daily around 7 a.m. by construction noise and her room vibrating.
“I would wake up, and there's just dust all around me, like on my bed,” Mastrson said. “They're banging so hard, the paint on the walls is falling into my face.”
Another tenant, Sydney Parsons, a 21-year-old UF civil engineering junior, said she went to UF Student Legal Services when she experienced flooding in her apartment after the construction workers improperly taped up her window.
The first incident occurred Sept. 27, 2025, as she and her roommate were getting ready to go out and rain started leaking into their apartment. After setting out pots and pans to collect water, she said she tried calling maintenance but kept getting a Verizon message saying the line did not exist. After trying several management numbers multiple times, she said she finally got a hold of someone.
“I started panicking, and I am a little bit evil,” Parsons said. “I was blowing up their stuff.”
After the first instance, she said she got a lawyer through Student Legal Services. Eight days later, the flooding occurred again with rust-colored rainwater pooling into their living room, she said.
She said she settled her case with Social 28 and now pays 75% of her original rent price. While she said she was happy with the outcome of the case, she said dealing with the situation greatly affected her.
“I felt obligated to be home and cancel plans,” Parsons said. “It really stressed me out bad.”
Parsons also finds the construction noise disruptive to her trying to get any schoolwork done. She said she would wake up at 7:30 a.m. to the sound of hammering and her walls vibrating, which caused items to fall off of her shelf and break. The hammering would persist until construction ended for the day around 6 p.m.
“It was absolutely impossible in my opinion to focus here,” Parsons said.
Caroline Walsh is a contributing writer for The Alligator.
Caroline is a freshman sports journalism student in her second semester at The Alligator. She is a photographer for the Multimedia desk. In her free time, she enjoys running and watching hockey.
