CINCINNATI — We received several tips this week from parents and students at the University of Cincinnati, say they were promised free garage parking in their leases at The Deacon. Now, the complex's management is saying they can't honor that, and some tenants must move their vehicles.
Every student we spoke with Wednesday said free parking is a part of their lease agreement, but Yugo, the complex's management company, is now saying that parking is sold out.
Some of those students have been placed on a waiting list, and they told us that residents at The Hub, another student housing complex across the street, also park in the same garage.
As we were on our way to The Deacon, we received another tip that Cincinnati police officers were at the complex. When we pulled up, the first student we met was UC senior Joshua Evans, who was on his way to run an errand. He told us he was one of the students who received a notice saying he can no longer park in the garage, despite it being part of his agreement.
WATCH: Hear from UC students who say they are no longer allowed to park at The Deacon
"Personally, I think they oversold when it comes to free parking, and they currently have the garage door open," Evans said. "I think it's also going to get them in a lot of legal trouble."
While we were speaking with Evans, another UC student approached us. Jared Hart, a sophomore, was also given notice that he needs to find somewhere else to park.
"People all around Cincy have been parking in our parking garage, and it's been overfilled," Hart said. "It's been an uproar for the last two days now. They just slapped a paper on our door that said we had to move our cars. They sent an email saying by tomorrow, if people don't move their car or return their passes, they'll get hit with a fee."
We went inside The Deacon to try to speak to someone in the leasing office. A woman came out and told us we weren't allowed inside, they couldn't talk to us and that we needed to call the corporate office. When we asked who we needed to speak with, they refused to tell us and said "no comment." We called the corporate office and couldn't reach a person, so we left two messages.
As we were speaking to other students outside, one of the employees from the leasing office handed a piece of paper to us with an email address and told us to contact them. After we emailed them, we received this reply: "Thank you for your email. A member of our communications team will be in touch within the next 24 hours."
Two other students came out to speak with us after we were asked to leave the premises. They didn't want to give their names, but one of them said they were waiting in the lobby, wanting to speak with members of the leasing office, but were hitting a roadblock.
"They're breaching our contract, and I came downstairs to try to talk to the manager. They said the manager is not talking to anybody," one woman said. "Then they called the cops on me because I was sitting there waiting for them."
"They said that all of their parking is sold out," said another woman.
The second woman showed us copies of her lease agreement.
"Free monthly parking and best rent prices early, that was back on Sept. 5, 2024, and I signed my lease on Wednesday, Sept. 25," she said. "I never got a parking concession in my lease."
While we were speaking with another student, two police officers showed up and went inside. We asked them why they were there, and the officers replied, "No comment."
A parent of a UC student later called WCPO to tell us that employees closed down the office shortly after we left. Then we saw a flyer posted, with a QR code, asking residents to join a group if they lost their parking permit. We later ran into the student who posted it, Dominic Scott, a senior at UC.
"I had a very extended argument with them up front," Scott said. "That's not how contracts work, right? You sign a paper, and the thing on the paper is what you do now. A lot of us have lawyer parents, which I was very surprised by; there's going to be probably a big stink if that happens."
