Photo courtesy of Indio Management
A portion of the Marquita Court Apartments roof collapsed on July 24, 2022. The incident left over 30 of its residents displaced.
With no injuries reported, the focus shifted to the property. What would happen to the historic East Dallas building?
Just over two years after the roof collapsed, Seth Bame, the owner of the property and the CEO of Indio Management, the company that operates the apartments, shared the process of rebuilding and completing the property. The Advocate’s last round of reporting on the building included updates about the state of the property and Indio’s communications with insurance.
“We had to understand what was feasible to do it and bring it to code as well as, working within the confines of the historic district,” Bame said. “We had to go through the planning, permitting, zoning, historic process and figure out what all the requirements were, but we did that while we were working with our insurance company.”
Bame’s team had experience with these kinds of rebuilds that required a specific type of renovation and repair process, having worked on the Bella Villa apartments on Miller Avenue — another historic rebuild — just a few years prior.
Bame shared with the Advocate in August that the property was nearing completion. Units had been pre-leased and the last round of inspections, along with final landscaping touches were underway.
Bame also said that his team was never given an official cause for the roof collapsing back in 2022.
“There was a lot of speculation as to what happened, but I think it was just a 100 year old building that, you know, had an issue,” Bame said. “We don’t know exactly what happened. We’re very thankful no one got hurt, and now it’s built new again and hopefully it’ll last another 100 years.”
For those who may be skeptical of the building since its initial collapse, Bame said that his team has brought the property up to current code and rebuilt it from the inside out — including some new additions to the property.
“There was never central air conditioning. There were only window units,” Bame said. “We’ve added central air, we’ve added laundry facilities to every apartment which was not there. All the electrical is brand new. The plumbing is brand new.”
The rebuild brought with it a host of new elements to the property, but Bame wanted to maintain its original look and feel.
“Not changing the aesthetics was important to us, not building something that didn’t fit with the original intent.”
