DAVENPORT, Iowa — A Davenport business owner and her mother are speaking out over issues that plagued their previous building owned by Andrew Wold, the owner of the partially collapsed apartment in downtown Davenport.
Versailles Jewelry and Gems was located in the Village of East Davenport at 2200 E. 11th Street.
"Things moving and falling and breaking in the basement, and stuff not working," owner Jessica Kinney said. "It made it almost impossible for us to run our business here."
Jessica Kinney moved her business into the location in Sept. 2021, noticing some condition problems at first, but the issues grew in June 2022 when she moved into the second floor to live above her business.
"There was no bathtub, no shower, no stove, no refrigerator — Andrew kept saying they'd fix those things," mother Lisa Kinney said, who helped sign the lease.
The Kinneys said they reached out to Wold and his staff, who said things were fine several times before eventually sending contractors.
"One day, they drilled through a main support beam in the floor upstairs to put the shower drain in — and the next morning we came downstairs to open the store, and water was flooding through the ceiling and flooding through the lights, the electrical," Lisa said.
Lisa said they showed the contractors problems they noticed in the basement.
"One of the main supports for both those upper stories broke right in two — and there's nothing holding it together," she said.
After seeing cracks in the wall grow over several months, they called the city to inspect. Lisa said the city believed the property was fully commercial, and that they could only inspect if it was at least partly residential.
"So I said 'Oh, but it is residential! My daughter lives upstairs,'" Lisa explained. "They said 'Well no one's supposed to be up there — we didn't issue a permit for rental up there."
A document obtained by News 8 details a March 16 inspection where the city inspector found 27 code violations. This includes a failure to hold a valid Rental License, exposed electrical wiring in multiple locations, deteriorated wall plaster/drywall/sheetrock in multiple locations, and inadequate weather protection from building trim among other issues.
The multitude of problems are similar to complaints that tenants had of the downtown Davenport apartment before it collapsed.
"I just, I don't understand," Lisa said. "I have a feeling a lot more of his buildings are like that."
"I went through probably a quarter of my savings, just to relocate and get somewhere safe," Jessica said.
The Kinneys have ongoing legal action against Wold's company over the poor conditions and what they said are excessive payments to the energy company, where their energy usage was tracked incorrectly and they were paying the entire building's usage for several months without knowing.
Lisa said they are waiting for the fire marshal to complete an investigation of the property with a consulting structural engineer.
Jessica's store has relocated across from the Davenport Hy-Vee on 3019 Rockingham Road.