JJC foundation loses control of student housing

Centennial Commons, the debt-ridden student housing complex opened by an arm of the Joliet Junior College Foundation in 2001, was slated to be put into the hands of a receiver Thursday.

Foundation officials said that the changeover was slated to proceed as planned.

“All I know is tomorrow it’s still going through, so we’re out of it,” foundation board President Rosa Angeles said Wednesday

What will happen next with the apartments is unclear.

An employee who answered the phone at Centennial Commons referred questions to receiver Drew Millard, a principal of 33 Realty, who did not return a call for comment.

The apartments likely would empty out for the summer this week, said Kristin Mulvey, executive director of institutional advancement at JJC.

Mulvey said Pinnacle Housing, the firm now managing the apartments, will no longer be there. But she was not certain what the new management plans are.

“We don’t know. They don’t tell us anything,” Mulvey said of the receiver now in charge of the apartments. “They’re taking leases, so I assume they’re letting people stay there.”

Centennial Commons, located on the JJC Commons, consists of six buildings and 296 beds. Only three of the buildings are open with the others in need of repairs, according to JJC.

A Will County court agreed to put the complex into receivership, which was sought by UMB Bank on behalf of the holders of about $14.4 million in bonds that financed Centennial Commons when it was built.

The apartments, built with the idea that they would accommodate students who wanted to live close to the main campus of JJC, never generated revenue to pay off the bonds.

State law prohibits community colleges from operating student housing. JJC provided the land to build and operate Centennial Commons.

JJC recently had been seeking to buy it back from the bondholders with plans of demolishing the buildings.

Board Chairman Robert Wunderlich said the college no longer is negotiating for the property.

“We would like to negotiate,” said Wunderlich. “We made an offer. They made a counteroffer. ... They came back and said, ‘We think we have a couple of people interested in buying the place.’ ”