Burnsville sues owner of apartment complex with history of code violations

The leak began in the bathroom in August, water steadily dribbling through a vent. It soon spread to the kitchen, leaving brown stains and softening portions of the wall.

A few weeks later, something blooming in a cabinet caught Mark Bauer’s eye.

“I don’t want to pay for living with mold,” he said.

Bauer lives in a one-bedroom unit at Glen at Burnsville, a three-story apartment complex just off of Interstate 35W. The buildings are the center of a lawsuit the city of Burnsville filed on Oct. 15.

The suit, filed in Dakota County District Court, alleges the complex’s owner has failed to remedy numerous code violations — from fire doors that don’t properly close to a sprinkler system past due for inspection. It also enumerates dozens of problems inspectors have found since August 2023. Some of them, such as water-logged ceilings, are those Bauer continues to face.

Properties must pass city inspections to obtain a rental license. The city contends that the owner of Glen at Burnsville, beset with unaddressed violations, is illegally renting units without proper credentials.

Some of the problems have been fixed, the complaint states. The city is asking the owner to remedy all remaining violations and bring the building up to city, rental and fire code.

The owner appears to be far from Burnsville. Two of the five companies the city is suing have ties to Priderock Capital Partners, a Florida-based real estate firm that owns apartment complexes from coast to coast. The Glen at Burnsville is one of Priderock’s properties.

The firm said in a statement that it’s working to remedy the problems inspectors noted. Priderock has completed requested work, the statement continues, and is in the process of replacing the deficient fire doors.

Bauer, the tenant, pointed to thick new fire doors lining halls on his floor.

The work comes about four months after inspectors counted 115 fire doors that needed immediate replacement. Fire Chief BJ Jungmann said many didn’t properly close, potentially allowing smoke to pass through cracks and jeopardizing residents’ ability to flee during a blaze.

A fire has ripped through the building before. A January 2022 blaze triggered alarms but didn’t cause any deaths, a city news release states. Bauer said workers were still repairing damage when he moved to the complex in April 2023.

Apartment buildings — some of them now decades old — dot Burnsville. Code violations have occasionally forced the city to intervene.

The City Council in December 2022 suspended the rental license of Parkvue Flats, a 300-unit complex, after a fire erupted and no alarms sounded. A decade before that, the city yanked the credentials of the long-troubled Country Village apartment, forcing numerous residents to move.

Council Member Cara Schulz said the city has recently seen a drop in code violations.

She attributed that to staff’s willingness to collaborate with property owners to address problems. That “hands-on” approach, Schulz added, has helped owners quickly bring buildings up to standard, averting the need for sterner action.

But not all owners readily comply. Schulz said the city has been attempting to work with the company that oversees Glen at Burnsville for “quite awhile.”

A visit to the building dismayed her. Stagnant water pooled in the parking area, she recalled. Chunks of missing sheetrock created portholes into residents’ units.

“It was awful,” she said. “I do not know how anyone could expect other people to live under those conditions and take their money.”

Large real estate firms are increasingly buying up apartment complexes in Minnesota and across the U.S. Responsibility for properties’ upkeep ultimately falls to them, Council Member Dan Gustafson said. But getting these companies to fix problems — many of them are headquartered thousands of miles away — can prove challenging, Gustafson added.

“There’s nothing wrong with rentals,” he said. “But there’s something wrong when you can’t get to the owners to keep them up, because everyone deserves a safe place to live.”

Bauer, the tenant, knows that situation firsthand. He said he tried to reach Priderock about the leaks and mold but gave up after struggling to find contact information online.

He complimented the property manager for her prompt replies to his concerns. (Priderock reiterated its statement after the Minnesota Star Tribune attempted to contact the property manager for comment.)

A maintenance worker looked at the leak in the kitchen soon after it began, Bauer said. But the stained ceiling and soggy drywall remain. A worker fixed the moldy cabinet Monday after a visit from a Star Tribune photographer. A contractor is scheduled to repair the water damage in early November, he said — about two months after the first leak.

Still, Bauer said he likes living in the complex. His neighbors are mostly quiet and he enjoys his screened-in patio and wood-burning fireplace. And some problems, like potholes in the parking area, were recently remedied.

He said he’s optimistic the repairs to his ceiling and walls will happen, too.

“But until it’s actually done,” he added, “you deal with what you got to deal with.”