For the past five years and the next 35 years, Corvias is responsible for the management, upkeep, renovations and policies regarding student housing on the Armstrong campus.

The property management company, based in Rhode Island, is a multibillion-dollar organization that deals with a variety of clients ranging from the United States military to higher education.

In 2014, Corvias entered a $548.3M contract with the University System of Georgia (USG) that won’t expire for over half a century, which served as a solution for the USG to defease $300M worth of collected debt. This deal included bed maintenance for over 9,000 new and existing dorm beds.

In this contract, Corvias accepted a 40-year deal to lease and manage housing properties for nine universities in Georgia, including Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus. Under the management of Corvias, Armstrong Housing underwent 25 different projects totaling more than $826,856.

Under Corvias’s management, between August and January, just under 1,000 work orders were placed for issues within Armstrong housing units, including mold, pests and leaks, from a population of 701 students. Corvias declined to comment on the matter.

“Building a Community”

Currently, Corvias has faced two class action lawsuits from some of their tenants of Fort Meade in Maryland and Fort Bragg in North Carolina regarding their quality of housing. In 2022, the 11 families from Fort Meade reached a settlement, but the Fort Bragg suit is ongoing.

The Hilton Head law firm suing Corvias on behalf of Fort Bragg residents, Wallace and Graham, is suing on the alleged account that Corvias “knowingly leased substandard homes and conspired to conceal harmful environmental and structural housing defects.”

Some of the alleged housing issues consisted of mold, water damage, wood rot and pest infestation. There were also reported health issues such as “respiratory distress” related to a carbon monoxide leak in one of the housing units.

Trouble in Georgia

During the pandemic, Corvias faced accusations of pressuring universities to alter their student safety plans in order not to decrease the dorm occupancy, as that could lead to a decrease in revenue for the company.

This led to a tag-team investigation from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Rashida Tlaib in 2020, who had previous suspicions regarding the motivations of the private partnership. In light of these accusations, a few of the university newspapers in Georgia spoke out about Corvias’s pressure to reopen.

“The financial interests of corporations … were prioritized over the lives and well-being of students and workers,” Georgia State graduate student Ben Fowler said in light of Corvias’s insistence to increase the dorm capacity.

In 2019, Georgia State students in the residence buildings began to report issues of mold. At first, Housing hesitated in relocating the students, but ultimately, The Signal reported that “about 60 residents across 24” had to be moved due to mold in their dorms.

To stay up to date with new information regarding housing on the Armstrong campus, check out the Inkwell website.