JedFonner.com

Bogdan Builders parking spot “problem”

Jed | June 21, 2007

UPDATE 6/25/07: We did a “drive through” of the garage and tested how annoying it will be to park there. It’s definitely not an easy maneuver, but at this point I’m more disappointed with Bogdan than angry, so we’ve decided to take the new offer just to be done with it.

UPDATE 6/21/07: Bogdan Builders counter-offered with an increase in price of only $1,500 (as opposed to the original $2,500) for the bigger spot. They also put a deadline on the offer, saying it expired on the 24th, which I thought was a little obnoxious.

Last year, I entered into an agreement with Bogdan Builders to purchase a parking spot in the new condo building being built across the street from me. They required a deposit of $5,000 to reserve a spot that would be ready in “late Febuary or early March”. Needless to say it is now June and they’ve just “discovered” a problem.

Bad Bogdan! A little background: the parking garage is under a new condo building called Logan Station being built by Bogdan across the street from me in Washington, DC. For security reasons, parking spot owners who do not live in the building (like me) cannot use the garage elevators but instead must use a stairwell that is accessible from the street. When I originally put down my deposit on the space, the agent showed me blueprints and explained the stairwell would go down to both the 1st and 2nd level of the garage. So I purchased a spot on the 2nd level very close to the stairwell, since all the spots on the 1st level close to the stairwell had already been sold.

This week, I was able to tour the garage. Surprise surprise, the stairwell now only goes down to the 1st level. Where the stairwell should extend down to the 2nd level, there is now a storage room that is rented out to owners who need extra storage. I’ve been told that Bogdan will make a nice annual profit off of this storage space. Well the problem for me is that there is no way to access my spot except to walk down the stairwell one level, then walk to the other end of the garage and walk all the way down the parking garage ramp to the 2nd level - a ramp that will be slippery with oil and grease and will potentially have cars driving on it. Also keep in mind that the garage is about the length of a city block.

What Bogdan has offered me is to switch my spot for a spot mostly up the ramp. But that’s still on the complete other side of the garage. I would still have to exit the stairwell and walk the length of the garage to get to my car. They’ve also offered to let me purchase a spot just as close to the stairwell as my old one except the new spot is on the 1st level. However, I must pay an additional $2,500 for the new spot. Now, granted, the new spot is bigger and the normal jump in price from a compact spot to full-size is $5,000. They see this as a fair compromise, but I do not. The spot is far from the elevators and located right behind the initial ramp into the garage, meaning that it’s very hard to get into, especially for a big car (it pretty much requires a few three-point turns and/or backing in). Also, being far from the elevators, it won’t be that attractive for residents of the building, who have free access to the elevator. So I don’t think it’s actually worth $50,000 or even $47,500. Also, since I feel that I’ve been the victim of a “bait-n-switch”, I would have hoped that Bogdan would voluntarily offer me the bigger spot and their apologies.

So I’ve proposed that we make an even switch: my spot on the 2nd level for the larger, poorly-positioned but close-to-the-stairwell spot on the first level (space #12).

Here is the letter I sent to McWilliamsBallard and Bogdan Builders (emphasis added by me for this post):

To: Trent Heminger, Sales Manager for McWilliamsBallard (who are selling the spot)
CC: Steve Gerber, Vice President of Production at Bogdan Builders

Hi Trent,

I appreciate you taking me around the parking garage yesterday and speaking with me about the new situation with the parking spots. I briefly spoke with Steve Gerber today, and he directed me to send you an email with my concerns (and I’ve cc’d him). He said you and him would discuss the matter further once you’d received written explanation of my concerns.

My main concern is that when I entered into this agreement with Bogdan, it was clearly and plainly stated that the stairwell would extend all the way to the second level. The reason I chose my space was completely because of its close proximity to the stairwell. I feel that the alternatives currently offered by Bogdan to rectify this situation are not adequate since none of the options result in me getting to purchase a similarly close spot without paying a hefty fee.

Regardless of whether the blueprints I was showed were old or whether a conscious decision was made by Bogdan to change the plans to add more storage to increase storage rental revenue, the fact is that we should have been notified as soon as the storage space put in where the original stairwell should have been. But instead we’ve been waiting for months (remember the original completion date was Feb/March) with no warning that the situation had changed. I’ve also put in numerous calls to Rita but was never told anything about this problem.

To my non-law-school trained eye, this seems to be close to a breach of contract as well as a bait-n-switch situation, where I was sold one thing but am now being told that I must take an inferior item or pay more for what I had originally thought I was getting. I would have expected a responsible, concerned company to go out of their way to make this up to their customers, but that’s not what I see happening here.

What I feel would be a satisfactory resolution to this problem would be allow me to switch my current spot for space #12 for the original, agreed-upon price of $45,000. I realize #12 is a larger spot, but it’s also in a poor location relative to the elevators as well as the ramp which will make it very hard to get into for most large cars. I wouldn’t expect it to be highly valued by residents of the building who would probably prefer spots closer to the elevators, or by large car owners who would have trouble maneuvering their car into the spot. For these reasons, and in light of the very poor communication and (at the least) appearance of dishonesty on Bogdan’s and/or McWilliamsBallard’s part, I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask to switch my spot for space #12 without any additional increase in cost.

Thank you for your time, and please don’t hesitate to contact me via email or phone.
Jed Fonner

Now we’ll see what they say.