Noble 2500 opens after months of delays
January 24, 2023
Residents at Noble 2500 moved in this weekend after five months of delays and temporary living situations.
The West Campus apartment complex was initially scheduled to open before the start of the fall 2022 semester, but it failed to meet leasing start dates for all students, as construction of the complex was incomplete. Three months after the Texan first reported delays, Noble 2500 finally opened its doors to its residents.
Before moving into the apartment this past weekend, students were being compensated for the housing issue in different ways. Last semester, students had two options. Option one: to pay rent, live at the Moxy Hotel on Guadalupe and receive $40 a day or option two: forgo paying rent, figure out their own living situation, and receive $150 a day.
In December, Benedict Barker, an international business junior and exchange student, said he was told the building would open over winter break and begin charging rent as normal. However, Barker and many other students were out of town and did not want to begin paying rent before moving in.
As an intermediate solution, Noble 2500 offered students a one-time payment of $600 to move in after the break and begin paying rent at the start of the spring semester under the assumption the building would open during the break, which he accepted. However, when the apartment delayed move-in until January, Barker said he was not able to continue receiving the $150 a day other residents were receiving.
“Very shortly afterwards, the option three decision (to receive a one-time payment) closed. They then moved (the move-in date) to January, and I realized that had I stayed on the other option, I would have been paid throughout the whole of Christmas,” Barker said.
During the period of time between mid-December and Jan. 6, some students were receiving $150 a day while others received a one-time payment of $600.
Noble 2500 management and ownership group declined to comment.
“I’m currently in my ninth Airbnb across four months,” Barker said. “I haven’t been settled at all really. It’s 100% impacted both the social experience and kind of just the overall experience.”
Human biology junior Hannah Waters said she has not had any issues with her apartment so far, but said she would not consider living there again.
“Because of the way the delayed situation was handled, it’s just not something I want to do again,” Waters said. “I already signed somewhere else, so I won’t be living there again and neither will any of my roommates.”
Biomedical engineering junior Sara Milliken said she felt comfortable signing a lease with Noble 2500 before construction was complete because she had lived in a new building before.
“The year prior, I had lived at Villas on Rio, which was another brand new building,” Milliken said. “I had friends that were living at Waterloo, Legacy on Rio, The Standard — all brand new buildings — and they had never had an issue with it. So we never even thought when we signed that lease in fall 2021 that it was going to take this long.”
Milliken said she would not recommend Noble 2500 to new students after the issues she had in communicating with management.
“The management has just been horrible,” Milliken said. “Given this whole ordeal, I’ll never trust them again.”
