Is it 2015 already? Goodness, how the year has flown! 2014 brought both challenges and accomplishments for Mills. From new communities and big renovation projects to improvements in training and new people to train, it was a great year. But we are absolutely ready for an even greater 2015! A new year means new and exciting things coming our way. But before we dive into the future, we want to take a moment to revel in all that 2014 brought us.

January/February

In January, Mills took over management of a beautiful apartment community in the Forest Park area, just off highway 64 on Oakland Avenue, Lofts at the Highlands. It was actually built on the site of the old St. Louis Arena aka The Checkerdome. It is a 200 unit, 246,612-square-foot community that consists of two five-story buildings with one, two, and three bedroom loft apartments. While we have made a few updates to modernize the interior, we have also added some neat art pieces to showcase the unique history of the building and it’s location. Check out more about The Lofts here.

March/April

With January and February being busy with preparing for the new year, finalizing budgets, and starting new projects, we decided to host our annual associate party in March. Mills-A-Palooza took place on Friday, March 15th at Brunswick Zone in Chesterfield. We split up into teams and each team dressed up by decade. We had the Fabulous 50s, 60s Hippies, Psychedelic 70s, Bombdiggity 80s, and Fly 90s. We played both regular and Cosmic Bowl, ate delicious food, gave away awesome prizes, hosted the 1st annual Millsy Awards with sweet trophies, and of course, rocked some fantastic costumes! Can’t wait to see what Mills-A-Palooza 2015 has in store!

In April, we attended the St. Louis Apartment Association’s annual Rising Star Awards. It is an amazing event that recognizes superstars in the apartment management industry. Mills is so appreciative of our associates and thankful to SLAA for hosting this event to give them the opportunity to be recognized at such a great event. You can read more about our nominees and the 2014 winners here.

Mills also got a visit from one of the most well-known trainers and experts in the apartment management industry, Lisa Trosien. Lisa came to our corporate office and spoke to our leasing teams and managers. She offered Sales Training and helpful refresher tips and ideas for leasing and resident retention. It’s great to get outside perspective and new ideas from experts in the field and our team was very grateful for the visit. We hope to keep this going in 2015 and have another expert in the industry come to St. Louis and speak to our teams…who will it be?

May/June

May and June were busy, busy, busy. We ended the month by rolling out our second Mills music video. You might have seen our first video, It’s Always A Good Time (at Mills) on YouTube. It was such a hit that we decided we must continue the tradition. When “Happy” by Pharrell was released, we knew we had a winner. We danced on roofs, spun (and fell) in chairs, danced on treadmills, dressed up, danced on chairs, moon-walked, and had a great time! I can’t guarantee when the next music video will happen, but I certainly hope to see one in 2015! Happy ft Mills Properties

We also added two properties to the Mills portfolio: Meadows at Shadow Ridge and The Oaks of Dutch Hollow. These properties are owned by the same company and are located in Belleville, IL. Most of our portfolio is in St. Louis and Columbia, so we were excited to take on our first properties in Belleville, IL.  Both properties offer one and two bedroom apartments and a great location near Scott AFB and Metrolink stations. We’re excited to learn more about the area from managing these communities and potentially expand our Illinois portfolio in the future.

In addition to new communities, we also began renovations on one of our existing communities. Celtic Crossing, a 24 unit community we acquired in August of 2013, was originally built to be a condo community. However, it is soon to be a 168 unit apartment community, with two new buildings of 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments with open concept floor plans and luxury features. In addition to new apartments, a clubhouse, outdoor resort-style pool, dog park, and community gazebos are being added. We hope to have the renovations completed by February 2015, pending nice St. Louis winter weather, of course. Check out more about the community.

July/August

In July we welcomed Senior Regional Manager, Scott Boone. Scott has long time associations with both the apartment industry and the St. Louis Apartment Association. He has a great eye for detail, acute financial awareness, and a passion for people. We are so very excited to have Scott on our team, and he jumped right in and became acclimated to an over 10,000 unit property management company with grace and ease. He also enjoys participating in all of our fun events; giving up his morning to help wrap presents for our holiday giving program and bringing out his most hideous sweater for our ugly holiday sweater competition. We’re very thankful to have Scott on the Mills team and look forward to an awesome new year.

We also welcomed a new property to our portfolio. Hawthorne Apartments is a high-rise building located in the Central West End. It offers a vintage style and is unlike any other community in our portfolio. The community boasts great amenities including: connected garage parking, controlled access with doorman, study lounge with WiFi, on-site laundry, and of course spectacular views of the city.

September/October

September brought our first On-Site Spotlight from the HR team. In an effort to recognize the talent and hard work of the Mills team year-round, our HR Department created a monthly award to showcase those who are nominated by their fellow associates. Each month, one person is chosen and a blog post highlighting their achievements is written for the Associate Spotlight. They are also rewarded with a prize. We’re very fortunate to have such a passionate HR team and look forward to seeing them continue this great program in 2015.

Another exciting event that the SLAA offers each year in October is the Fall Expo & Seminar. This year’s seminar host was Nancy Friedman, The Telephone Doctor. Nancy is a great speaker who offers excellent customer service insight and provides fun and effective ideas for retaining residents and providing an excellent experience for all customers. In addition to the speaker, it is a chance for our on-site teams to meet and mingle with others in the apartment management industry and have some fun.

Mills loves to dress up! Our marketing department creates a variety of opportunities to dress up throughout the year. Several years ago, Facebook created a Photo Contest App, and ever since we’ve been hosting online photo contests as often as we can get approval. 🙂 And what better time to dress up than Halloween? Our teams went all out this year, from a Crayola box to The Wizard Of Oz to The Three Blind Mice…I could go on and on, or you could just check out the Halloween Photo Contest.

November/December

Both our Columbia and St. Louis communities have become active in the apartment associations’ Maintenance Mania events. The SLAA hosted the event in St. Louis this year and we were fortunate enough to put a team together to compete. It was a fun time and we even had a cheerleader (apparently Millsy was unable to attend). Our maintenance team had a lot of fun and are excited to compete again next year. Check out all of the competitions and winners here. Check out the Mills winners of the 3rd annual Columbia, MO event that our teams competed in last October.

In December, we partnered with St. Patrick Center for our annual holiday giving program. This year with a donation total of over $6,000 from Mills residents, associates, and vendors, we were able to provide gifts for 32 families. We hosted a day of shopping and a day of wrapping and had a lot of fun! Check out all of the photos!

And to close out the 2014 year, Mills hosted a fun Ugly Holiday Sweater Contest to go along with the Annual Holiday Managers Party. The sweaters were awesome (and by awesome we mean U-G-L-Y!) and some of the poses were hilarious! We’re so thankful for our teams who enjoy dressing up and being goofy and having a good time!

2014 brought many changes and accomplishments. We started many projects this year that we know will only help to improve the company in the coming years. With new training programs including a Learning Lab at Ely Walker Lofts, a utility savings program, a new operational policies program, and a more advanced traffic monitoring program, we have stepped up our game and are prepared for a fantastic new year. Of course, we couldn’t have done any of this without the hard work, diligence, and passion from our team. From our managers and assistant managers to our leasing consultants, maintenance, grounds crews, accountants, marketing crew, capital improvements, human resources, our regionals, VP of Operations, and of course, Kirk and Bruce Mills. Mills is ready to ring in the New Year and enjoy a successful 2015. Game On!

Mills 2014 Year in Review:

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