SYCAMORE – New landlords of the renovated Carriage House complex showed city officials around the two now-white residential buildings before the City Council meeting Tuesday evening.

The city provided new landlords Scott Carlson and Tim Royer with $10,000 to put toward the $300,000 project as part of the city's Gateway Improvement Grant program. Royer said renovations for the complex, which he and Carlson are expecting to be fully rented by September, are about done, and three more units still need work. He said rent for the two-bedroom units will be $712 a month, and 15 of the 20 total units have been rented.

City Manager Brian Gregory said he was impressed with the project’s transformation, considering the complex’s previous condition.

“To see a rehabbed project like this, it benefits our entire community,” Gregory said.

To accomplish the rehab work, the owners required all of the former tenants to leave a few months ago. Residents in 15 units were served termination notices April 19 that said everyone had to be out of their apartments by May 31. Many of the evicted tenants’ leases expired, and they automatically became month-to-month leases by law.

Former residents previously said they were not happy about being forced to relocate or find enough money in 40 days to cover rent for the first month, last month and a security deposit for a new apartment, but they acknowledged problems under the previous landlord, such as bedbug and cockroach infestations and no working heat in the units.

The previous residents also said the old landlord of the complex never told them that new management was taking over.

Royer said he and Carlson were aware of the previous owners not maintaining the apartments as they should have. He said other violations from the previous owner included no hot water and no smoke detectors in any of the units.

Gregory said he believes the project will prove to be a nice addition to the city’s gateway.

“It’s clean, it’s fresh, it’s modern,” Gregory said, “but, most importantly, it offers good living conditions for people in Sycamore.”