Students living in Icon still waiting for furniture, amenities

CTV Kitchener: Still a construction zone Some students living in Waterloo's Icon apartment buildings are still without basic furniture. Abigail Bimman has the story.

At least 24 complaints have been filed with Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board about the Icon student apartment complex in Waterloo.

While there are no longer any students waiting to get into the building – which wasn’t approved for full occupancy until four weeks after the date when some students were told it would be ready – photographs taken inside show that it isn’t exactly what they were sold on when they signed their leases.

Promised amenities like an in-building movie theatre, tanning beds and rooftop sports courts are not yet ready.

Some student apartments are missing pieces of furniture like mirrors and coffee tables.

In Brendan Tran’s case, his bedroom still doesn’t have a door – or room for a promised wardrobe, thanks to drywall that hangs lower than it should.

“It’s one thing after the next,” he said in an interview.

“I’m at the point where I’m not even surprised anymore.”

Located at Columbia and Phillip streets, the Icon building was developed by Rise Real Estate.

CTV News has repeatedly called and emailed employees of that company to ask questions about the status of the building.

The only reply came from a man named Brian Smith.

“I guess they have run out of news in Kitchener/Waterloo so they want to do some more Icon bashing,” he wrote. Smith later sent another email, saying he had not meant to send the first one to CTV.

After three months of phone call and email efforts failed, a CTV reporter went to the developer’s head office in Hamilton.

A receptionist in an office behind a door with Rise’s logo said that Rise’s office was actually in the next suite over, but nobody would be there because “everyone works out of Waterloo.”

In the next office – which did not have Rise’s logo on its door – a receptionist said that there was nobody from Rise in the building. She offered to take the reporter’s contact information and pass it on. More than 24 hours later, no responses had been received from anyone representing the company.

At the Icon office in Waterloo, the complex’s property manager said that nobody involved in the project as a developer was around. He declined to answer whether he worked for Rise, and declined to comment on the state of the unfinished units.

With reporting by Abigail Bimman