Uncommon, a new apartment building for student housing, has been delayed until the end of September, leaving students who expected to have housing near campus to find other accommodations.
Originally the apartment building scheduled move in day for August 18.
In an email Uncommon sent to the Arbiter, they stated that the new move in date is expected to be at the end of September.
“We are terribly disappointed by the current circumstances of our delayed move-in. Our partners ran into unforeseen and unavoidable delays during the construction process which have impacted the delivery schedule of the building,” the email said. “Our team is working with both the development group and the general contractor to provide regular updates as we receive them to residents via email.”
According to Lucas Jones, a student at Boise State who is one of the future residents of Uncommon, students have been offered $150 dollars a day until the apartment complex is complete, or to be put in a hotel and have their rent abated, as well as receive $60 dollars a day.
“Everyone that I’ve talked to so far is doing the $150 a day but I mean, I think it’s pretty fair for what it is,” Jones said.
He first received an email about the move-in being postponed on July 26. However, according to another student, Amy Madrid, Uncommon was aware the apartment would not be finished in time in April, 2023. In the meantime, he has found other accommodations farther away from campus.
“It sucks not being as close to campus as I’d like to be,” Jones said. “I found a place like, it’s not the end of the world, but I do definitely wish it was done on time.”
On April 8, Madrid and her roommate drove to Boise to meet with the Uncommon leasing office. The address she was given took her straight to the construction site.
“Only the bones were up. There was like no drywall, no windows,” Madrid said. “We were just a little thrown off because we thought they said that we would have gotten a full tour of the interior and what it would look like, but at the time, we didn’t know it was still being constructed.”
According to Madrid, until she arrived at the leasing office, Uncommon had made it seem like the apartment was fully constructed prior to her arrival at the construction site.
“We thought it was completely built and that we were going to get the tour but we didn’t find out it was unconstructed until we got there, and then it was verified later on in our meeting [that it was delayed],” Madrid said.
At the time, Madrid and her roommate weren’t given an exact deadline by Uncommon employees, only that they “hoped to have it done in time for school.”
On top of the expected delays, Madrid had safety concerns about the apartments. According to Madrid, the employees pulled her and her roommate aside to describe what life in the apartment would look like after they were cleared to move-in.
“They pushed us to a farther off area away from where another meeting was happening and the whole time they were just whispering because there was very legitimate concerns about there being male workers that could have 24/7 access to the hallways, the building itself and maybe even copies to keys,” Madrid said. “That was a big safety concern.”
According to Madrid, the building only had half the cameras installed, and lacked other safety measures such as fences.
“There was so much of it [wasn’t built] that they weren’t able to put in proper safety measures that all these other apartment buildings standardly have,” Madrid said.
As a result, Madrid decided to find apartments elsewhere and did not lease with Uncommon.
“We knew that it wasn’t a good contract and that either way you’re going to be stuck in a bad situation if you signed with Uncommon, so we just went ahead and looked elsewhere,” Madrid said.
