City-backed apartment owes $425K water bill

A city-backed apartment complex in West Baltimore has not paid a water bill since November, city records show. As of Friday morning, the two properties comprising Center\West owe the city $425,764.

It’s not the first time the apartment complex in the Poppleton neighborhood has had water trouble. The developer of Center\ West, New York-based La Cité, held a ribbon cutting for the complex in 2018, but extensive water damage delayed its opening until 2019.

Dan Bythewood, president of La Cité, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Center\West is a long-planned, multiphase urban renewal project that began under the administration of Mayor Martin O’Malley. La Cité won the right to redevelop the area in 2005. The city acquired more than 500 properties in the predominantly Black neighborhood, displacing families and razing homes to make way for what was billed as a transformative project.

Nearly two decades later, La Cité has completed phase one of the project — two “luxury” apartment buildings called Avra and Cirro on North Schroeder Street. Most of the 262 units are market rate, with 53 units set aside for low-income residents.

Demolition and construction limped along following the Great Recession. At one point, the city attempted to end the redevelopment agreement with La Cité, resulting in a federal lawsuit that was later dismissed.

In 2015, the city approved up to $58 million in public financing for the project, of which about $12 million was drawn for phase one. Much of phase one’s financing came from a $56 million loan backed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, making taxpayers liable for much of the money if La Cité were to default.

Since the end of September, a fifth of all tenants in Center\West have left the complex, according to a recently filed bond disclosure.

As of last fall, nearly all 262 units had been leased, but by the end of March, the total occupancy rate had dropped to 80%. In the bondholder documents, La Cité said the drop in tenants was “due to a poorly performing and noncompliant management company.” La Cité has since fired that management firm, Bethesda-based Ross Companies.