Hillcrest Oakwood Apartments

Hillcrest Apartments (formerly Hillcrest Village Apartments and Hillcrest Oakwood Apartments) is an apartment complex located in Big Rapids, MI. It is most notable for its plot significance to the Ferris Access Channel miniseries Blood Over Water, as well as its Sims 4 comic adaptation. It was also one of the residential lots included in The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff.

Blood Over Water
Building H was where Blood Over Water director Chris Wilson resided in the fall of 2009. He portrayed Chris Kennal in the miniseries. The apartment 201-H was used for the Mark Stefflin residence, set in the same time period. The complex first appears in part 1, though little is seen of the complex outside of 201-H until part 2. In that part, the exterior was shot. The complex reappears in the final episode, with a flashback sequence.

The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff
In 2020, the location was revisited for purposes of putting final touches on the release of The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff. A new trailer for it came with the creation of a new, updated version of the custom pack for The Sims 4. This custom pack was dubbed "The Merre Edition," as it was made as a tribute to the late Merre Bowmaster. A mostly-accurate and nearly 1:1 scale re-creation of 2009-era buildings H and F were constructed for inclusion in "The Merre Edition," set on a large lot size - and typically placed in the Del Sol Valley neighborhood in The Sims 4.

In the game's trailer, the Ghost of Big Rapids Living Spirit Past (masquerading as Merre) takes Mike and Meagan to this apartment as they're looking for places to stay. They found a lot of the residential homes interesting, but weren't sure of moving to Big Rapids permanently. They were intrigued by North Bond Hall as well, but were unimpressed that it was a singles-only residential setup. Hillcrest Building H is the last residential stop, before the couple gets to tour theaters and restaurants.

Earth-G5
Mark Stefflin (played by Zach Foster in real life) resided in 201-H in the Classic Gerosha timeline. In part 1 of Blood Over Water, Aaron finds it strange that Mark never called him in the morning about their pending fishing trip. He heads to 201-H to investigate, and finds the door creaked open. He investigates the ransacked apartment, and finds everything about the place suspicious. He also discovers a manila envelope marked "Confidential," hidden behind a mini-fridge in Mark's bedroom.

In part 2, Sleet Mountain thugs George Lawence (played by the Dozerfleet founder) and Kyle Tugrass (played by real-life Kyle Mayer) see Aaron leaving the scene, and mistake him for Mark. The confused goons attempt to chase him, but lose his trail. The apartments return in part 5, in a flashback sequence, in which Chris Kennal (played by real-life Chris Wilson) and Ashley Phillips (played by real-life Angelica McClary) trick Mark into opening the door. He is quickly strangled to death, and the duo of baddies ransack the apartment in a futile effort to recover the missing envelope.

Earth-G7
The apartments return in the Sims 4 comic remake / adaptation of Blood Over Water, this time set in the Cataclysmic Gerosha universe. Building H is used almost identically, except for Mark meeting a much more violent demise than in his previous incarnation. Mark is also shown in this version to be using the apartments for dating activities, including his afternoon with Vanessa Fogsdorn and his budding relationship with the conflicted lesser protagonist Ashley Phillips - retconned in this version to be a lot less evil than her previous form. Aaron this time finds the envelope hidden under a patch of cut-out carpet underneath the bed, as opposed to merely hidden behind a mini-fridge. This increases the likelihood of Chris not finding it.

Using props from OBRL, the virtual simulation of Building H tries to get almost every detail right regarding what 201-H looked like in that time period, from the carpeting to Chris Wilson's 300 movie poster on the living room wall.

Scenery details not present in the miniseries footage or matching in-game with 2009 were instead changed to their nearest analogs with floor plans and photography from the 2020 Big Rapids tour set up for the making of OBRL.

Specs

 * Address: 1101 Fuller Ave. Big Rapids, MI 49307
 * Phone: (231) 598-4326
 * Average apartment size: 450 sq ft.
 * Rental rates
 * $569 / mo. (keys only to main entrance and one bedroom of a 2-bedroom suite)
 * $1,078 / mo. (all keys to a full 2-bedroom suite)
 * Pets: Cats or dogs allowed
 * Ammenities:
 * Close to Ferris State University
 * Sparkling resort-style pool
 * Enhanced co-working & creative lounge
 * Free laundry facilities onsite
 * Cable & high-speed WiFi included
 * Optional bedroom furniture packages
 * Select utilities included
 * Pet-friendly
 * Large enclosed Dog park
 * Basketball & volleyball courts
 * 2-bedroom apartments & individual rooms for Rent

Nearby early education

 * Riverview Elementary School
 * Mecosta-Osceola Education Center School
 * St. Peter Lutheran Private School
 * St. Mary Catholic Private School
 * Big Rapids Middle School
 * Crossroads Charter Academy

Nearby later education

 * Crossroads Charter Academy
 * Big Rapids Middle School
 * Big Rapids High School
 * Mecosta-Osceola Education Center School
 * Ferris State University

Nearby grocers

 * Meijer
 * Wal-Mart
 * Aldi
 * Johnny's Markets
 * Dollar Tree
 * Big Rapids EZ Mart
 * Kilwins of Big Rapids
 * Old Pioneer Store and Emporium
 * Family Dollar
 * Red Fox Market
 * Eastside Market
 * The Market at Ferris State

Nearby fast food

 * Culver's
 * Jimmy John's
 * Arby's
 * Qdoba
 * KFC
 * Long John Silver's
 * Domino's
 * Burger King
 * Little Caesar's
 * Taco Bell
 * Wendy's
 * McDonald's
 * Fatty C's Doghouse
 * A&W
 * Subway
 * State Street Scoops
 * Pizza Hut
 * Nawals's Mediterranean Grille

Nearby insurance firms

 * Farm Bureau Insurance
 * Farmers Insurance
 * Bleeker Insurance Services
 * Bush Insurance Agency
 * Red Insurance
 * Schuberg Insurance
 * Bridge Title Agency
 * Daum-Meemic
 * Big Rapids Insurance
 * AAA
 * Wenger Insurance

Nearby gas stations

 * Meijer
 * Wesco
 * Marathon
 * Admiral
 * BP
 * Sunoco

Nearby pharmacies

 * Meijer
 * Wal-Mart
 * Walgreens
 * Rite Aid
 * HomeTown Pharmacy
 * Family Dollar

Area crime rate
Note: All data listed here is from 2019, given 2020-released FBI statistics. These are only the incidents actually submitted to the FBI after screening by local police reports, and not indicative of all possible incidents that went unreported.


 * Murder: 0
 * Rape: 6 (57.8 per capita)
 * Robbery: 0
 * Assault: 20 (192.5 per capita)
 * Burglary: 18 (173.3 per capita)
 * Standard theft: 114 (1,097.3 per capita)
 * Vehicular theft: 3 (28.9 per capita)

The most dangerous region of town in our Earth number appears to be Locust St., near the Spectrum Health Hospital.

Hillcrest in Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff
Unlike North Bond Hall, in spite being Sorbet-relevant, Hillcrest doesn't have an official Sims 3 Dozerfleet Labs release. The Sims 4 version has been through several revisions, in order to acquire the accuracy level needed to make a passable lot for distribution with The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff. The build for The Merre Edition includes a 300 poster, as Chris Wilson's apartment did in real life in 2009. The difference is that the poster included in the game is a standard 300 movie poster, not the version Chris had with Leonidas' quote of "Tonight, We Dine in Hell!" Small liberties were taken with room contents, to better match the comic's take on Mark Stefflin.


 * Limitations

Unlike The Sims 2: Apartment Life, The Sims 4 lacks sufficient apartment logic to make this build work with similar success. Apartments in Sims 4 operate as mini-map regions within a world map, requiring a pre-built region in which only certain designated rooms "count" as a given apartment. Therefore, only Mark's apartment and a few more are even functional as rooms. And the entire thing counts as only one household. Other rooms are purely decorative. Due to other limits in the game, this file will never spawn enough NPCs to fill every apartment.