Residents give thumbs up to Summit Towers renovations

SCHENECTADY — Millions of dollars worth of cosmetic, functional and security upgrades are complete at Summit Towers.

The improvements are designed to both reverse wear and tear and reduce crime at the circa-1978 apartment house. Residents and managers alike say Summit Towers has made significant progress on safety issues, as misbehavior and outright crime have been reduced through stronger controls on who can enter the building.

K&R Preservation, of New York City, this week announced the completion of a series of upgrades it undertook after acquiring the 12-story building in late 2016. (Despite the name, the building is just a single tower.)

Summit Towers executive director Barb McBride show a newly refurbished apartment on the 10th floor Wednesday, April 18, 2018. (Peter R. Barber/Gazette Photographer)

The work included all-new kitchens, bathrooms, lighting and electrical wiring in all 183 apartments. In common areas, security systems, landscaping, sidewalks, roof, elevators, boilers and fire alarm panels were upgraded.

K&R owns numerous other affordable housing properties, including one each in Albany, Cohoes and Watervliet. The four Capital Region buildings total 584 apartments and received more than $23 million worth of upgrades, K&R said, or an average of nearly $40,000 per unit. 

Summit is the largest of the four. When the sale of the building formerly owned by L.A.S. Schenectady Redevelopment Corp. was announced in 2016, the new owners anticipated the price tag for renovations would approach $10 million.

Summit Towers is federally subsidized Section 8 housing for those 62 or older and for people with disabilities. It is filled to 100 percent occupancy, not counting a recently vacated unit that will soon be turned over to a new tenant. Building manager Barbara McBride showed the apartment to The Daily Gazette on Wednesday. 

The space looks sharp, with new appliances, bright lighting, improved cabinetry and new counters. The bathroom overhaul clearly was planned with the elderly and disabled in mind: As in the other 182 apartments, the tub has been removed in favor of a large walk-in shower with grab rails securely bolted to each wall.

“It was just a tired building, needed an upgrade, needed new blood,” said Francine Kellman, a principal at K&R. “We made a lot of inroads, it’s a wonderful thing to be able help the seniors.”

The process took a while but was not hugely obtrusive, she said. A crew focused on one task at a time — kitchens or baths or lighting — and scheduled the work so it was done before dinner each day. No one had to spend a night out of their apartment, she added, and those who didn’t want to sit through the noise and commotion during the day were given options for spending the day elsewhere.

“Our construction guys are very well-versed in doing this,” Kellman said. “Everybody’s out by 4 p.m.”

In some cases, she added, the construction crews and residents went above and beyond the work order: A resident would cook a meal for the workers, or the workers would get done early and knock out a resident’s to-do list of miscellaneous fix-it jobs.

Along with resident comfort, safety was a goal of the new owners. The building has been the scene of criminal activity in the past: Isolated major incidents such as a recent stabbing or a 2016 rape, and a continual stream of relatively minor offenses, such as drug dealing and prostitution.

“There still are incidents that happen, unfortunately, but there’s far less,” Kellman said.

At the heart of it all is a multi-layer security system designed to keep uninvited guests out of the building and restrict invited guests to the lobby or to the floor on which their host lives. Going up, the elevator will take nonresidents only to the floor of the resident who let them in. Going down, the elevator will take nonresidents only to the lobby. 

Summit Towers executive director Barb McBride talks on the phone with television screens of some of the 80 security cameras in operation through out the building Wednesday, April 18, 2018. (Peter R. Barber/Gazette Photographer)

More than 80 security cameras record the public spaces inside and out, from every angle, and provide the staff a view of who’s doing what, and where. If necessary, police can review that footage to help solve crimes.

But the weak link in all this is the word “uninvited.” If a resident lets someone in, he’s in.

On Wednesday, two young men in the vestibule eventually gave up trying to get in when the apartment they were ringing didn’t answer. They reached to grab the door as a Gazette reporter and photographer exited, then thought better of it and walked away. One offered a common gesture of disrespect when the photographer declined to give him any money.

McBride said a critical decision was made to lock the stairway doors. (In the event of a fire, they’ll automatically unlock, though residents are instructed to stay in their sprinkler-equipped apartments with the doors closed to await assisted evacuation, if necessary.) Sealing the staircase has eliminated the most frequent site of criminal activity.

“Oh, the things that used to go one there,” mused McBride, a 30-year employee of Summit Towers. 

The problem with misconduct in the building reached the point in 2016 where residents signed a petition calling for changes.

A group of residents playing dominoes in the community room on Wednesday all said they’ve seen substantial improvements over the past two years, starting even before K&R took over.

Resident MaryAnn Bruno, who spoke out repeatedly about the problems at Summit Towers, said the building is much-improved.

“We’ve come a long way,” she said.

Summit Towers still has a bad reputation because of its location on the edge of the Hamilton Hill neighborhood, she said, but it’s a much better place now. When something like the April 10 stabbing happens, the residents are slandered by association, she said, though they are mostly good people who are proud of their homes there. 

“We worked all of our lives,” she said of her fellow retirees.

Shari Lawrence, a resident for 16 years, said, “it was going downhill, but now it’s going uphill.”

In her own apartment, she likes the safer bathrooms, and in the community room she likes the increased level of resident activity.

Angela Mans said the improvements in her apartment are excellent; she especially likes the cabinets.

Irving Fields moved into Summit Towers in June 2015, so he saw it at a low point and has seen it rebound.

“It used to be disgusting. Now, it’s going in the right direction,” he said. 

The high-tech locks and cameras and elevator controls all are helpful, he said, but they have their limits. 

“That’s good to a certain extent. If they want to come in, they’re going to come in.” Security guards would be a bigger help, he said.

Fields said he’d like to see a few more changes, such as more washers and dryers (McBride said that is in the works) and resident access to the ground-floor bathrooms used by staff (McBride said those bathrooms have been the scene of bad behavior and will continue to be controlled).

“That’s the only gripe I’ve got with the staff,” Fields said about not having access to the bathrooms next to the community room. Otherwise, the building employees have been responsive and responsible.

“When something gets broken, they fix it,” Fields added.

Longtime resident Bobby Walton said there has been “quite an improvement” in recent years. 

He said there are some minor problems: accordion-style closet doors that come off their tracks easily, people sitting in front of the building drinking, “a few hookers and junkies once in a while.”

But on the whole, Summit Towers has seen a good turnaround.

“The place looks pretty damn good … Mrs. McBride is a doing a good job.”

Categories: Business, News, Schenectady County