Vie Lofts to reimburse residents during shutdown

As 164 residents of Vie Lofts await for their apartment to reopen, the complex announced that it will be reimbursing all students a prorated amount for the number of days they will be displaced. 

Vie Lofts — located at 817 Chestnut St. — was given a mandatory evacuation notice on Friday by the San Marcos Fire Marshal because of safety concerns about building stability and means of egress.

San Marcos Fire Chief Les Stephens said the evacuation stemmed from stairwells in the building that were deemed unusable by residents. 

“The structural integrity of those stairwells has been compromised because of cracks in the (concrete masonry unit), breaks in the CMU, some of them have even collapsed and fallen away,” Stephens said Friday. “On top of that just the structural integrity of the stairwell itself, the actual treads, we’re not sure if they’re unsafe, but out of an abundance we thought this was the best course of action at this time.” 

Vie Lofts said in a statement that it was surprised by the mandatory evacuation notice. 

“We want to reiterate that the safety of our residents at Vie Lofts at San Marcos is our number one priority,”Vie Management Co-Founder and CEO Derrick Milam said in a statement. “As a parent myself, I completely understand the concerns of other parents and residents and understand the inconvenience this is causing. This decision by the city on Friday took me by surprise as well, as we have passed what we thought were all the proper inspections and have approved paperwork from our engineers showing the structural integrity of our building.”

Vie Lofts said in a Facebook post that it had a meeting set Monday afternoon with the City of San Marcos. Additional information from that meeting was not available as of press time Monday.