Students Forced Out of Crest at Pearl Over ‘Structural Issues’

By Elijah Carll

Reporting Texas

Exterior of the Crest at Pearl apartment Dateline: March 27th, 2025. Elijah Carll/Reporting Texas

On Valentine’s Day, tenants living at the Crest at Pearl apartment complex on West Campus were greeted by calls and emails from management, telling them to move out immediately. What most tenants didn’t know then was that over the past two years, four code complaints had been filed surrounding observed structural issues in the building.

For one tenant, a student who moved into a larger penthouse last year, the warning signs were obvious the moment they walked through the door.

“When we walked in the room, the floor was actually slanted,” the tenant said. “We contacted management and they said everything was fine.”

A level tool on the floor of a penthouse unit at Crest at Pearl. Taken by a code compliance inspector with the City of Austin’s Development Services Department.

City inspectors confirmed the tenant’s observation in person, with one rolling a ping-pong ball, watching it “roll all the way to the window on the other side of the room.”

The tenant, a senior at UT, wishes to stay anonymous as he negotiates his lease with American Campus Communities, the company that owns Crest at Pearl along with 13 other West Campus apartments. He says that after moving tenants out, they were given free stays at a hotel, but were initially denied the opportunity to break their leases or receive refunds on their rent. One tenant, who moved into another Crest at Pearl unit after their initial expulsion, had their rent increased by $1,160 for a smaller unit.

Lea Downey Gallatin, an attorney with the Austin Tenants Council, says the tenants may be able to sue the company for breach of contract given previously undisclosed structural issues. If all else fails, Gallatin says, organizing can be a powerful tool for tenants in this situation.

“There’s no way that landlords aren’t counting on the fact that this might be someone’s first time renting an apartment,” Gallatin said. “Apartment buildings in West Campus go up fast. (In) my own experience as a student, (it) was physically lower quality housing than people I knew who were living elsewhere.”

The UT Tenants Union, which pushed the city government to ban construction of windowless apartment units last year, posted about Crest at Pearl on social media after receiving tips from tenants. After their post, Crest at Pearl began offering $500 gift cards to tenants who chose to resign their leases.

“If this is such a serious structural issue that students are having to move out … Should students have been moving out a year ago?” said Nam Thrikutam, a co-founder of UTU. “I think there’s just such a lack of transparency that it creates a lot of fear and intimidation with these students.”

For Thrikutam, she hopes the union can help tenants stand up to corporate landlords in situations like this.  “You need to know these life skills on how to take care of yourself, on how to advocate for yourself,” Thrikutam said. “That’s what we’re really here for.”