SJ ‘Uptown Apartments’ Get Upscale Treatment Aimed at Young Professional Tenants

A Florida entrepreneur says he’s fallen in love with St. Joseph and Michigan’s Great Southwest!   As a result, Leonard Schulz is totally renovating an apartment complex in ‘Uptown St. Joe’, near the key intersection of Niles Avenue and Main Street.

Schulz tells us the ‘Uptown Apartments’, which have been quietly serving tenants at 1117 Niles Avenue since the 1970s, will soon take on an ‘upscale’ feel, catering to young professionals who have followed employment to St. Joseph or Benton Harbor, but are frustrated when they look for a nice apartment to call “home.”

There are eight one-bedroom apartments in the Uptown building.  Schulz describes them as “roomy, very adequate size-wise.”  However, he says, they of course need updating to appeal the the Millennials and Gen-Z tenants he’s targeting.  All the apartments will be essentially the same and rent in the $1200 per month range when they go on the market late Winter or early Spring.

Schulz says infrastructure is being updated throughout the complex, including internet, security cameras and locked storage areas for each unit.  Landscaping and outdoor lighting will follow in the Spring.  He promises there will be a “new fresh feel” to the entire project.  Schulz says there is off-street parking for each unit.

When asked about how he came to acquire the Uptown Apartments, the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida resident smiles, chuckles and shares a story.

“I was looking for a house and ended up buying the apartments.  They were listed one day and I bought them by noon the next day.  I was the first one in a line that formed quickly.”

Schulz said the property seemed to jump out at him from the online listings.  So he quickly called his realtor, who went to the location and gave Schulz a quick “Facetime” walk-through.  He decided to make an offer and by the end of the day, the deal was done.

Schulz also bought a house on Highland Avenue along the St. Joseph River, where he expects to spend the warmer weather months, while maintaining his Florida residence in the Winter.  He says he never imagined himself as a “Michigander”, but developed a…