CLEVELAND — Icarus DeShazer moved to Cleveland filled with hope.
The 22-year-old packed his car in November and drove from Arizona to Downtown, where his first apartment was waiting at the Luckman on East 12th Street.
From the start, things weren’t quite as advertised.
“As most things are online, it was very different,” he said. “It was better online.”
His refrigerator was missing. So were most of the burner coils for the stove.
Since then, the situation at one of Downtown’s largest apartment buildings has only gotten worse. Now, a lender is trying to foreclose on the Luckman. Court records show the landlord missed a mortgage payment in April and owes more than $36 million.
Tenants are worried – but not all that surprised. They said the financial problems are just the latest in a series of challenges, from broken elevators to a recent fire and flood.
And for frustrated tenants, a foreclosure isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“A foreclosure filing on a large apartment complex usually means that help’s on the way,” said Dan Burkons, a local apartment building broker.
The lender and landlord could make a deal, finding a way to bring in cash for repairs. A new owner could snap up the building, at a lower price that makes it easier to reinvest. Or the lender could take over, exploring ways to fix up the property and boost its value.
“In all of those situations, somebody’s investing … in the building,” said Burkons, an executive managing director at Institutional Property Advisors in Independence.
The landlord, Marlin Spring US Realty, did not respond to interview requests.
But public records show the company, part of a Canadian real estate group, has been struggling with the Luckman for years. Since 2020, the city’s health department has received dozens of complaints about trash, mold, roaches and rats at the complex.
And city building records show a procession of elevator violations.
“I feel like it shouldn’t have to be a coin toss as to whether or not I should be able to take the elevator,” said DeShazer, who lives on the 19th floor. “I feel like that should be a given in a building this tall.”
On Tuesday, his only option was the service elevator, which groaned up the shaft.
“It always sounds pretty terrifying to get into,” he said. “It’s got this terrifying dripping and creaking sound that makes me extremely nervous.”
'An affordable first apartment'
When it opened as the Chesterfield in the late 1960s, the 20-story Luckman was a rarity in the central business district. It also had Downtown’s first rooftop pool.
“There’s a lot of history there,” Burkons said.
“There are more studios in the Luckman than every other downtown apartment building combined,” he added. “So for generations, it’s been an affordable first apartment for a lot of Clevelanders starting out, as well as Cleveland State students.”
For the last decade, though, the property has been an outlier in another way. While many other Downtown apartment buildings filled up, the Luckman lost tenants. It burned through property managers. Owners talked up renovation plans – most of them unrealized.
A Marlin Spring affiliate bought the building in 2018 and renamed it after the original architect, Charles Luckman. And, for a short time, things seemed to be looking up.
Then, the leaks started. Between late 2020 and early 2023, the system of heating and cooling pipes threaded through the building caused leaks on almost every floor, according to public records. An attorney for Marlin Spring described the problems in a letter filed with the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision last year as part of a property-tax appeal.
“The leaks have delayed ownership’s plan to renovate and lease the upper floors as penthouse suites,” the attorney wrote. “The issues also have hampered operation of the elevators to the upper floors, affecting all tenants.”
As a result, he added, the Luckman was 45% vacant.
At the time, apartment vacancy Downtown was only 9%.
And that was all before the fire – and the flood.
'The last straw for a lot of people'
In April, a fire forced tenants to evacuate in the middle of the night. Then, a large pipe burst in a stairwell, sending a torrent through the Luckman’s lower floors.
“It was like the Titanic. All of the water was falling all over us,” said Andi Wilson, who had lived in the building for about 11 months.
She moved out right away. And many of her friends stopped paying rent, she said.
Experts say tenants shouldn’t do that. Instead, they should complain to the landlord in writing; give the landlord at least a month to make repairs; and, if nothing happens, deposit their rent with a local court. That process, rent escrow, provides protection against eviction.
DeShazer, a bartender and server, keeps paying $848 a month for his studio. But he understands why some of his neighbors gave up after the fire.
“It was the last straw for a lot of people,” he said. “Having to deal with something so serious and then get no response from management was bad.”
This week, the carpets were still torn up on the water-damaged floors. Sharp tacks lined the hallways. Portions of the walls were missing. So were large sections of the drop ceilings, where some of the remaining panels were stained and sagging.
On the top floor, the door to the pool deck was broken and firmly shut. Tenants said the pool was closed last summer. They’re not expecting it to open this year.
“Where’s my rent money going?” DeShazer asked. “It’s not going towards fixing my room or anyone else’s room. And apparently, it’s not going towards their payments on the building. It’s not going towards the pool. It’s not going towards the laundry room.”
He found out about the foreclosure from his neighbors and news stories.
“Just to see it go downhill is really sad,” said Wilson, a 21-year-old aesthetician.
She briefly lived at the Luckman in 2020 with her father. Then, she moved back into the building in May of 2023. In just a few years, she said, the decline was shocking.
“It’s a beautiful building,” she said. “And if people were just responsible and took care of it, then it wouldn’t be in the position that it was now.”
'You have to really do your research'
A New York-based lender filed the foreclosure lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on May 31st. Foreclosures like this can get resolved quickly, in just a few months. But they also can drag on for years.
Burkons, the apartment broker, wouldn’t comment on the condition of the Luckman or the financial details. But he said the 426-unit building still has great potential.
“It’s always filled a niche toward the lower end of the rental market,” he said. “Which doesn’t mean it has to be a bad property. It can be very nice. … Because of the size and the age of it, it’s always gonna be a cheaper alternative. But it can be a really nice place to live.”
DeShazer isn’t sure he’ll stick around to see that happen.
He bought into a vision he saw on apartment rental websites. He didn’t expect the trash in the courtyard, where there’s no net on the tennis court. The patched-up walls. The pests. The laundry room with washers and dryers that frequently don’t work.
“I know I should be protected with my lease, until the end of the lease, despite the foreclosure. Which is a relief, to some degree,” he said. “But also, I don’t know if it’s really worth staying here.”
As he relaunches his apartment search, he has a message for other renters.
“You have to really do your research. Which I wish I did more of,” he said. “Which I should have done more of, before I moved here.”
