Princeton community encouraged to attend meeting over fate of dilapidated luxury apartment complex

What was once supposed to be a luxury apartment complex in Princeton is not so luxurious after all.

Construction stopped last year for various reasons. What’s left has become so rundown, that the city is expected to make big moves that could decide the project's fate.

“It is embarrassing to be the third fastest-growing city in the nation and we have broken down apartments on the side of the road. So it has to be addressed,” said Princeton mayor Brianna Chacón in a Facebook live on her page Wednesday night.

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The City of Princeton said the project was approved in 2017 and started construction in 2021 but all construction activities stopped in 2023 after it failed a city inspection. In an online statement at the time, the city said in part the unfinished structures threaten the public health, safety, and welfare of the community.

In a news report in June, a member of the property ownership group told NBC 5 that work stopped because a contractor walked off the site after lending issues in May 2023.

The city of Princeton said the project was approved in 2017 and started construction in 2021 but all construction activities stopped in 2023 after the structures failed a city inspection due to deterioration and other problems. Then a contractor walked off the site due to lending issues.

For more than a year, the buildings have sat off Highway 380 in the heart of town, deteriorating.

After a third-party engineer was hired to conduct a thorough report on the safety and structural integrity of the buildings, the report informed the city that more than half of the structures needed to be torn down and rebuilt to properly meet city code.

The city gave the developer until this week to figure out what they're going to do.

On Thursday night, the city will be making some major moves on its fate in a public housing hearing with the developer and other parties. The public is invited to sound off as well.

"Voice your opinion. I can guarantee we probably all share the same one. Unfortunately, again, this is where we're at,” Mayor Chacón said in her livestream.

The meeting starts at 5 p.m. in the Princeton Municipal Center.

"We have new legal we have new administration. We have new management. We have new development. We have a team that since they've taken over within the last six months has moved this project along more aggressively than it has in the past few years. And that's the pace that we're going to continue moving," mayor Chacón added.

Another dilemma addressed by Mayor Chacón is zoning. The project was zoned back in 2017 for multifamily residences but Princeton has changed and grown dramatically since then. The project now sits in a prime location for commercial real estate.

The mayor worries it would be expensive to rezone it as commercial if the effort eventually gets tied up in courts, lawsuits, and other legal issues.

The other decision by all involved is the potential to tear the structures down because of the latest report by the independent engineers. Some of the findings include extensive weather damage and mold throughout the complex, with building materials and other parts of the project left sitting out in the elements.

That engineer report is supposed to be presented in that meeting Thursday night.