Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press Escanaba’s Harbor Tower stands above a nearly-silent Ludington Street Thursday morning. The 18-story complex is Escanaba’s most recognizable apartment building, but keeping the residents safe during the shutdown caused by COVID-19 has meant making some changes.

ESCANABA — At 18-stories, Harbor Tower stands well above the other rooftops in Escanaba, but that doesn’t mean the subsidized housing complex has been immune to the effects of the coronavirus.

“When something comes up we try to use a logical approach to try to keep everybody as safe and respectful of each other’s space as possible,” said David LaCrosse, administrative liaison for the Escanaba Housing Commission.

Generally speaking, not much has changed at Harbor Tower, but a temporary suspension of mail delivery did prompt some of the public areas in the complex to close.

“There was an issue with the Post Office not wanting their mail carrier to walk through our lounge area where people could potentially congregate, so they suspended mail service. I talked to them,” said LaCrosse, adding mail service was reinstated the next day after some changes were made.

In addition to closing the lounge, the meeting room that is normally rented out for parties was closed, as was a public restroom.

“The vending area is something that we left open but removed the table and chairs to discourage any type of meetings and from what I understand everything is running fairly smooth even though there were a few hiccups in the beginning,” said LaCrosse.

According to LaCrosse, Harbor Tower has been following directives from the Governor’s Office, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) closely. Signs from the CDC have been posted around the building, hand washing stations have been added, and residents have been asked to respect other’s rights to social distancing — especially when using elevators.

The staff at Harbor Tower have also been working diligently to clean and sanitize high-touch areas. While it hasn’t become an issue yet, LaCrosse noted that any cleaning and preparing of a unit for a new occupant would be done by a single worker to reduce the risk of inadvertently spreading the disease.

Other businesses and agencies that are deemed essential have reported struggling to find cleaning chemicals in the quantities they need, but LaCrosse said Harbor Tower’s stock was in good shape.

“We had a pretty good supply of things and I think we were fairly proactive with our thinking and our approach to stuff. We were a little bit ahead of the game with the stay at home orders and things like that,” he said. “So we’re doing pretty good in that regard.”

LaCrosse also noted that emergency maintenance was still available for residents 24/7, but some non-critical work orders may have to wait.

As much as possible, Harbor Tower staff is working from home, and the April housing commission meeting was canceled due to the governor’s stay at home order. LaCrosse said in the future the commission may reevaluate the need for virtual meetings, which are temporarily legal under a directive from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer suspending portions of the Open Meetings Act.

One thing that is being fast-tracked by the housing commission, are any rent adjustment requests.

“We have had had some people that have lost their employment or are laid off or whatever and request a rent readjustment based on that information. We process all those immediately and work to advocate for our tenants anyway that we can,” said LaCrosse.