The owners of Sterling University Peaks on Wednesday defended their decision to install swinging bookshelves that divided the apartment complex’s two-bedroom units into four-bedroom spaces, saying they were trying to meet a demand from tenants for more privacy.

Ed Byrne, a Boulder attorney specializing in land use and development planning, real estate and government relations, said the property’s owners didn’t believe they were violating Boulder’s building code when they installed pivoting bookcases in 92 out of 96 units at 2985 E. Aurora Ave.

They did not, however, run their plans by the city first, Byrne said.

“In some ways, I feel badly for them because they have been taking hits and their intentions, I think, were good,” Byrne said Wednesday. “Students have been modifying large doubles into singles for quite some time now, and the means and methods used by students rarely comply with building code, fire code requirements.

“The swiveling bookcases were an idea that one of the owners came up with to allow for privacy, which is what the students were after.”

Byrne is a member emeritus of the Daily Camera’s editorial advisory board.

He confirmed that the owners of the apartment complex are Matthew Johnke, John Pugh, Kimberly Horning, Tad Horning and David Wilson, who are all principals of a company known as College Town Investments. He said he was contacted and asked to represent the owners by Pugh, a past president of the Boulder Area Rental Housing Association, on Tuesday night.

Boulder officials deemed Sterling University Peaks apartments uninhabitable last week when they learned that crews had installed swinging bookshelves to illegally subdivide bedrooms within the complex after final inspection.

Roughly 400 tenants, many of them University of Colorado students days away from the start of the fall semester, were evicted for one night while crews worked to remedy the situation by immobilizing one of two bookcases in each room.

City officials said the subdivision made the units unsafe to occupy because some of the bedrooms lacked windows, smoke alarms and fire sprinklers.

On Wednesday, Boulder spokesman Mike Davidson said the city was continuing to gather facts about the situation. Possible sanctions include prosecution in Boulder Municipal Court.

Owners ‘weren’t hiding’ bookcases

Though the apartment’s owners provided the city with detailed plans last year so they could obtain the necessary building permits for renovation work, they did not disclose their plan to install hinged bookcases to city officials.

Instead, they spoke with a private code consultant in Denver, who told them that the bookcases would not require a building permit and were OK to install without permission from the city, Byrne said.

“Like all furnishings, they got added after the city inspection,” Byrne said. “They weren’t hiding it. That’s when you put (furniture) in.”

The two bookcases installed in most bedrooms had solid backs and ran from the floor to the ceiling. When the two bookshelves swung closed, they met in the middle to form a solid, wall-like partition that created two separate bedrooms.

Had the owners checked with Boulder officials, they would have learned first that the building code requires a permit for all fixtures — cases, racks, counters and partitions — that are attached to the wall and taller than 5 feet 9 inches.

They also would have learned that even when a building permit is not required, owners must maintain buildings that meet all code provisions, including life-safety rules, according to Kirk Moors, a Boulder senior plan reviewer and assistant building official.

Asked why the owners went to a private Denver code consultant instead of the city of Boulder, Byrne said it’s common for builders and designers to test ideas with consultants.

“Sometimes if you don’t know the answer to the question, you’re sometimes hesitant to ask because then you’ve revealed a plan that you might abandon once you get the answer,” Byrne said. “But it’s sometimes easier to test ideas with people who are familiar with this field and choose one or reject another based on their advice and then move forward.

“And part of the advice they received was, ‘It’s a bookcase. You don’t have to get a building permit to put in a bookcase.'”

Byrne added that, in hindsight, the owners should have spoken with the city directly about the bookcases.

Prior to the sale of the building for $22 million to College Town Investors in April 2015, the complex consisted of 800-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom units that rented for $1,600. Each bedroom in the pre-renovation units was roughly 230 square feet, according to archived rental listings.

When the new owners renovated the units, they added two hallways, which made the bedrooms smaller, and added the bookcases as dividers. According to room dimensions provided to the Daily Camera by the mother of a tenant, the subdivided bedrooms were roughly 70 square feet and 90 square feet in size, depending on the room.

Tenants said they paid between $600 and $700 per month per private bedroom, which translates to roughly $2,400 to $2,800 per month per unit. That’s an increase of 50 percent to 75 percent from the pre-renovation price.

Even at $2,800 per month, Byrne said the new total unit rent is below market rate. He said he’s seen apartments rent for $1,000 per bedroom, or $4,000 total, in the vicinity of Sterling University Peaks.

“In many ways, they thought they were bringing a below-market price product to students in a manner that better met the market,” he said. “I’m not surprised that after their renovations, what they put into that, rent went up some.”

‘No good deed’

Though some tenants said they were told by leasing agents that they would be occupying private bedrooms within four-bedroom units, Byrne said he hasn’t seen advertising that suggested the units were four singles.

The leases some tenants signed were for shared bedrooms and do not specify how many bedrooms are in each unit.

“They were doubles with an option of swinging these bookcases closed to provide privacy if that was your desire,” he said.

He added that the owners still think the swinging bookshelves are a good idea because they could easily be opened in an emergency.

A floor plan on the complex’s website, which has since been taken down, showed two rooms on one side of the unit, split by the bookcases, with furniture pushed up against the makeshift wall — the bookcases in that model were immobilized by the furniture. The other side of the floor plan showed one large room with the bookcases swung open.

Byrne said the posted floor plan showing the bookcases both open and closed is proof that the owners weren’t trying to hide what they had done.

He said the owners didn’t recognize that adding the bookcases would “ripple out through the building code, the fire code, where are the electrical outlets, where are the light switches, where’s the carbon monoxide detector.”

“I don’t know how many of them have experience in the student housing market, which can be a little bit unique,” Byrne said.

According to biographies posted on the College Town Investments website, the five owners are all experienced real estate investors, with particular knowledge of student housing.

Johnke’s biography describes him as a “veteran player in the Boulder multi-family market sine 1989” who has repositioned at least 30 individual student housing properties in Boulder. Johnke has also owned apartment buildings in five different U.S. markets.

Pugh began investing in the Boulder student housing market in 1982. Kimberly Horning’s biography said she has “25 years of experience” in managing student house. Wilson has more than 30 years of experience investing in income properties, according to the website.

Still, Byrne defended the owners and their belief that the bookcases were legal modifications to the units.

He said the owners intend to work with the city moving forward.

“It may astonish people to hear that, to some extent, from their side of this, it feels like no good deed goes unpunished,” Byrne said. “They identified a market desire and what they thought was a legal, safer alternative to provide the privacy that the students wanted.

“And as soon as they found out that it wasn’t, that the city didn’t like this solution, they fixed it.”

Sarah Kuta: 303-473-1106, kutas@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/sarahkuta