The city of San Antonio has told about a half-dozen people to leave their North Side apartment complex after stairs leading to an upper level of their building collapsed and two tenants fell through.
It’s unclear whether the owner of The Preston, a company affiliated with disgraced entrepreneur Devin Elder, plans to make any repairs. The city’s Code Enforcement personnel have been documenting problems at the apartment complex for months, but the property “basically is abandoned,” said spokesperson Ximena Copa-Wiggins.
The city issued a notice to vacate more than 30 units on the second floor of multiple buildings at the complex at 3200 Thousand Oaks Drive earlier this week because of concerns about damaged stairs, Copa-Wiggins said.
Most of the apartments were already vacant, she said. About half-dozen units were occupied, and city staff haven’t yet been able to determine whether anyone is living in the other half-dozen apartments.
It’s unclear when the two tenants fell through the stairs and if they suffered injuries.
In July, the city put The Preston on its registry of complexes that have been cited for code violations, which is part of its inspection program targeting negligent landlords. Owners who don’t make repairs are fined $100 per unit per year. The Preston landlord was making some repairs but then the work stopped, Copa-Wiggins said.
The property was built in 1981 and has been owned by 3200 Thousand Oaks LLC, a company affiliated with Elder, since 2023. But the company was involuntarily terminated in September, state corporate filings show. Neither attorneys for Elder nor management at The Preston immediately responded to request for comment Thursday morning.
Elder pleaded guilty in February to a single count of wire fraud after admitting to operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded about 345 investors in 17 real estate investments. He faces up to 20 years in prison and has pledged to pay his victims about $66 million in restitution as part of his plea agreement.
Elder once had a goal of managing $1 billion worth of real estate. He acquired a portfolio of apartments, office-warehouse buildings and rural land across Texas through his company DJE Texas Management Group LLC and other companies he controlled. He amassed his portfolio largely with money he raised from investors, but it began crumbling last year.
DJE Texas stopped distributions and began winding down last year, worrying investors. Elder also began selling some of his holdings, including apartment complexes, vacant land, a single-family house and an office building, and lost several residential properties in foreclosure for allegedly failing to make payments to lenders.
Prosecutors are working to sell 21 properties and administer the portfolio of promissory notes owed by individuals for single-family homes and parcels of land to benefit Elder’s victims. The Preston complex is not among the properties.
City personnel are helping residents ordered to leave to relocate to other housing. They will keep monitoring the complex and trying to get in touch with ownership, but there are few options, Copa-Wiggins said. She added that they haven’t had a similar situation with an owner since launching the apartment inspection program in 2023.
“This is such a unique case,” Copa-Wiggins said.