Six months after area investors bought A Tropical Garden, an Eastside trailer park, about a dozen tenants have moved out. Tenants claim the property has not been properly maintained, and eight trailers of the 52 are vacant.
Now, it appears investors with The Koto Group — which has several properties in Isla Vista and is owned by philanthropist and Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea, investor James Knapp, and others — are flipping the property, according to multiple sources. Though the sale has not been recorded with the County Assessor’s Office, A Tropical Garden is listed for $7.3 million on Radius Group’s website, $1.5 million more than the owners paid for it. Information about the park’s future has been opaque, instilling fears among the 75 residents.
In recent months, real estate agents have been at the site more than the maintenance guys, said Gloria Guess, the park’s longtime office administrator. (Realtor Rob Hambleton, who represents the property, could not be reached by deadline.) Developers from Los Angeles, Guess added, have recently toured the park.