JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The potential buyer for the troubled Eureka Gardens apartments and several other federally subsidized housing complexes owned by Global Ministries Foundation is Ohio-based Millennia Companies, News4Jax has learned.
GMF put Eureka Gardens, along with five others in Jacksonville and several others in other states up for sale in May. It is believed that The Millennia Companies would take the entire GMF portfolio, including Eureka Gardens, Washington Heights, Springfield Residential One, Southside Apartments, Market Street Apartments and Moncrief Village, all in Jacksonville.
The properties were offered without an asking price.
"GMF has reached an agreement in principle for Millennia’s acquisition of certain of GMF’s Section 8 properties," company spokeswoman Audrey Young confirmed in a statement. "The sales will be subject to typical due diligence and other inspection contingencies, as well as subject to HUD approval."
News4Jax found that The Millennia Companies is based out of Cleveland, Ohio, and is comprised of Millennia Housing Management, Millennia Housing Development, Millennia Housing Capital, and American Preservation Builders.
According to its website, The Millennia Companies, founded in 1995, specializes in the acquisition, rehabilitation, and management of affordable and market rate properties and manages 20,000 units across 22 states.
“Our mission is to provide the highest quality of standards in the management, operation and development of affordable and market rate rental housing, thereby striving to enrich the quality of life for our residents,” the company wrote on its site.
MORE: The Millennia Companies website
Tracy Grant, president of the Eureka Gardens Tenant Association in Jacksonville, said the areas that Millennia Companies specializes in could benefit her complex.
"Rehabilitation means, to me, that you're going to tear it down and rebuild it and make it look new, make it feel new, make residents feel like this is going to be home," Grant said.
Eureka Gardens on Jacksonville's Westside and Washington Heights in Northwest Jacksonville have been the center of a months-long I-TEAM investigation into deplorable living conditions at the complexes.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, met with Millennia Companies CEO, Frank Sinito, on Monday afternoon at his Senate offices in Washington D.C.
A spokesman for Nelson's office said Sinito told Nelson his business is buying 15 properties owned by GMF and has inspected some of the apartments and has 60 days to inspect the rest.
Nelson told Sinito that no one should have to live in the conditions he saw during a surprise visit to a GMF property with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and that if Millennia does take over ownership of the properties, he expects the company to immediately make any and all necessary repairs.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development deputy assistant secretary Priya Jayachandra told News4Jax last month that there was a letter of intent for the purchase and that the government would review the purchaser before the sale is final and provide a list of critical and noncritical repairs to the buyer, which will be required to make the repairs.
The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Housing Transportation and Community Development will hold a special hearing Thursday on HUD's inspection process, Rubio announced last week. Grant, who will be among the witnesses to testify at the hearing, said she has a few questions for the potential buyer.
"How long, once you purchase the property, will you start renovating? Because at this point, to me, there's no time to wait," Grant said.
But she said she's hopeful that the new owner will not only restore the complex, but also restore pride for the residents who live there.
"It's clean. It's new. They're glad to show off their apartment. (They're) glad to tell people, 'Yes, I live out here. Yes, this is my apartment,'" Grant said.
Mayor Lenny Curry spoke with Sinito on Tuesday and addressed the media after the call, alongside Councilman Garrett Dennis, who has fought along with Curry to have a new owner of the troubled complex.
“The councilman and I said in recent months when all this started, once we discovered how bad Eureka Gardens was, that it hadn’t been maintained, that people were living in squalor, it needed new ownership, and we were going to stay on this,” Curry said. “This is a positive development. They are serious and to quote the CEO of the company, 'There standard is what I live in a property I own.'”
Dennis said the new potential owner said all the right things and seems to moving in the right direction.
“One of the things that stood out to me is it’s about people. It’s about doing what’s right for the residents of these troubles properties,” Dennis said. “But it is a business transaction, so we’re going to have to let the transaction work itself out.”
GMF owns 61 properties in eight states, including several in Memphis, Tennessee, that are the source of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by one of the foundation's investors.