Canalside Lofts

UPDATE: our problems continued to go unaddressed regardless of how many times we went to the office to put in maintenance requests. What DID help was contacting the regional manager of the property company. Within 48 hours I had 4 different maintenance men in my apartment. I still plan to get out of here asap, but if you’re having issues with maintenance I would suggest contacting the willow bridge regional manager. The front office will give you her email if you ask for it. I pay $2100 a month for an apartment that I would not consider clean or safe. My husband and I have been residents for almost 2 years. Our first maintenance request was for our garage door which goes up and down on its own. We put that request in for the first time on the day we moved in. We are still living with a garage door that opens at random and have returned from vacations to find that it has been open for days. Maintenance requests go ignored and mysteriously disappear from the online system. Office staff placates until they’re tired of seeing you and then they are downright rude. Currently my smoke detectors are not installed, my water runs yellow, we have mice (so do our neighbors), we still have the garage issue, our upstairs shower has no water pressure and our downstairs toilet overflows. I have put in multiple requests both online and in person for these issues and they have gone unanswered. I am at my wits end in this place and the staff could not care less. I could not recommend this place less.

I have been a resident here since October of last year. I didn’t want to leave a negative review, but it seems like the only way to get certain issues addressed. First, I want to say that I love my unit—it’s beautiful—and the office staff are always incredibly friendly. However, I’ve noticed that certain areas of the property receive more attention than others. For example, the side of the complex facing the nearest bridge is consistently littered with garbage, which is unpleasant to see. My biggest issue has been with my washer. I pay higher rent to have a washer and dryer in my unit, but since moving in, my washer has never worked properly. It turns on and stops shortly into the cycle. I’ve submitted at least 20 maintenance requests and personally visited the office around 7 times to address it. Maintenance visits are often delayed—this last time took over a month—and even then, the problem is marked “resolved” without actually fixing it. For instance, I once returned home to find the washer completely dry, meaning it hadn’t even been tested. I just want to use the washer I pay for, and if it can’t be fixed, I don’t believe I should have to pay extra for it. My experience with maintenance has been that simpler fixes are prioritized, while more challenging repairs are avoided. It’s frustrating because this significantly impacts my living experience. I’ve also stated that due to my washer not draining right, it now is full of rust and destroys clothes even further, but this too gets ignored. Also gotta say, the pool, in this hot SC summer, has been closed a majority of days. In this rainy summer, they close the pool when it rains and it stays closed in the days that follow virtually making it unusable. I don’t think a pool should need to have maintenance done for days every time it rains. TL;DR: Beautiful unit and friendly office staff, but ongoing maintenance issues—especially with my washer—have made my time here less enjoyable Update: Following their advice, I sent an email regarding my washing machine issue. It’s been about a week, and I still haven’t received any response.

This place has served me and my dad well for the last year, however, we decided to move apartments to open up room for my siblings to come stay with us and we had an apartment in this same complex become available at the appropriate time. However, after checking in daily with them and making sure the apartment was ready to go for us to move in today, it was indeed not. For starters, we were supposed to have a maintenance guy come in and replace missing drawers under a bathroom sink (pictured below) and we were able to start early in the morning and move most of our stuff over to be ready to stay here when the guy showed up. On top of that, there is no useful dryer as the exhaust port is unhooked and in need of repiping, we were told an inspection of the place was done before moving in and we are left to think there was none or an unprofessional and lazy one done. With that, the maintenance man never showed and we found out at 3 pm that he had an emergency. I understand things come up but there was no communication of any sort on how to fix this situation after we approached the leasing office at least 4-5 times today. So on top of lack of commitment on their end we were met with lack of communication as well as we had to continuously ask the lady at the desk (she’s not completely at fault as it seemed she was left on her own today with no support). Not only does it seem poorly ran here, there seems to be a lack of care. On top of all of this we are left after our move in day with no keys, no idea on when we’re getting a maintenance guy here to come fix the issues listed above as it is Memorial Day Weekend, and the lady left for the day after saying she would call and update us (we went to the office at 4:30pm and no one was there yet their sign says 5pm). Overall, this experience with them has left us in shock as this is usually unlikely for them as we’ve stayed here for over a year with nowhere near this level of issues, but it’s disheartening to see this as we’ve raved to coworkers and other friends about how great this place is. After today though we are displeased and left with confusion as what to do with the little communication and guidance that we’ve been handed. All main issues with the apartment are pictured below.

I had a good overall experience living at CanalSide, the community, neighbors, and environment were great during my lease. However, my move-out experience was disappointing. I moved out on mid May (with my lease ending on mid June )and disconnected my electricity service when I left. Later, I was surprised to receive a large electricity bill for the period after I had moved out. From what I understand, this charge was related to HVAC maintenance the management performed on the unit after my departure. Since I had already cut the electricity, it’s unclear why I was responsible for those charges. More frustrating was the lack of communication after I moved out. Despite several emails asking for clarification on the electricity bill, my final closing statement, and my deposit refund, I did not receive any response from the management team. While my living experience, neighbors, and the environment were positive, I hope the management improves their communication and transparency during the move-out process to provide a smoother experience for future residents

I would not recommend moving here if possible. While the location is very nice the hassle of trying to get any basic maintenance request fixed is a full time job. The first 6 weeks I lived here I had multiple problems with the apartment. It took me talking to the leasing office every day for weeks to get some of the issues resolved. They still haven't finished resolving some of the basic issues even after multiple reminders over multiple weeks. My fridge broke and it took multiple weeks for management to replace it. When they did, it was with another dirty fridge! They couldn't even be bothered to wipe food out of the fridge they were giving me as a replacement for the broken fridge. I truly believe that the management is the problem, every militance worker I've talked to seems to care and is professional. But whatever system they are using is clearly failing them. Every single person who I've talked to who lives here has had issues with the inability to resolve maintenance issues in a timely manner. Again I can't stress enough the location is not worth the hassle of dealing with this leasing company.

Been here a month and haven’t had any maintenance requests resolved. Only the hot water in the kitchen sink works and we have mold in the laundry room. Management was notified after a week of no response from maintenance and still haven’t had anyone contact us. Pretty annoying to be new residents and they won’t even address mold growing in their property

my air conditioner has been broken since april 2nd, it is now june 24 and it is still not fixed. columbia is in a heat advisory. i’ve reached out many many times with limited response and zero resolution.

We moved here month ago and honestly we loved it here people are nice and it's a safe place to live in , one thing we loved is front disk ladies Dani and Ebony , they are very helpful very kind and very nice ladies thier good hospitality when we wanted to move in forced us to love this place .

Still dog shiza everywhere, people always park in the fire lanes, even park in the fire lanes facing the wrong way. It's not enforced, so park wherever you want. Even in the spots that residence pay $60/mo for...again, not enforced and not audited. It cost me $60 to pay rent... took months to have a maintenance request to get handled. Homeless meth heads hang out at the pool on occasion. That's fun! You'll probably get shwacked by someone speeding thought the neighborhood... Again, not enforced. BTW the pools were closed all summer last year, mean while, Sola station pool is pristine...But they refuse to acknowledge it. Why do I still live here? ;shrug emoji; The pics on the website and other outlets are out of date and inaccurate. Also, this will appear as a response to this post... "We are so sorry to hear about your experience while visiting our community. We strive to maintain a clean and welcoming environment for all, and it's clear we fell short during your visit. We take all feedback seriously and will use your comments to improve our community. We invite you to reach out to us at +1 803-461-0465 or canalsidemgr@willowbridgepc.com to discuss your concerns further." It's canned and they don't give a rats ass about anything and don't respond...

I pay $2100 a month for an apartment that I would not consider clean or safe. My husband and I have been residents for almost 2 years. Our first maintenance request was for our garage door which goes up and down on its own. We put that request in for the first time on the day we moved in. We are still living with a garage door that opens at random and have returned from vacations to find that it has been open for days. Maintenance requests go ignored and mysteriously disappear from the online system. Office staff placates until they're tired of seeing you and then they are downright rude. Currently my smoke detectors are not installed, my water runs yellow, we have mice (so do our neighbors), we still have the garage issue, our upstairs shower has no water pressure and our downstairs toilet overflows. I have put in multiple requests both online and in person for these issues and they have gone unanswered. I am at my wits end in this place and the staff could not care less. I could not recommend this place less.

i have been without air conditioning since April 2nd, it is now June 26th and Columbia is in an extreme heat advisory and i still do not have AC. i have emailed, called and requested maintenance on the app so so many times with limited response, zero care and zero resolution. this is by far the worst place i have ever lived.

Rent from anyone else. Lease language structured to pull so much money out of their tenants.

Hello. I debated making this review but I need to tell the public how horrible their leasing office is. I am currently on the market for an apartment so I decided to call them last week to schedule an appointment after seeing availability on their website. We scheduled a tour for today at 4pm. I arrived, and quickly understood this place was a dumpster fire of disorganization. She asked me what I was looking for (?!?!?!) and I told her I spoke with her last week about exactly that. I told her I wanted a 2bed(with included personal preferences) and she told me they had no availability and have no clue when they would. The lady at the desk was as helpful as she could be, but I do not understand why I was offered a tour when they have zero available units.

When I first moved there, I thought maybe it would be a good place to live. The maintenance team was great! They worked fast and always came to fix things in a reasonable time. However, the front desk and management are horrible. You could never get through to talk to anyone. They overcharged me for sewage and water at least six times in my 13-month lease. Of course, I didn't pay, but trying to get through to them to have them correct it so I could pay my rent on time was terrible. The breezeway to the apartments is filthy! The trash guy only takes one bag of trash a day, despite not working on Fridays and Saturdays. The water pressure and water temperature were horrible. And the rent is far too high for these apartments. There is no storage room. The closets are not worth having one. The bathroom tub is made of extremely cheap material, hard to get clean, as is the toilet.

Weeks trying to get any reply from management to return security deposit has been unsuccessful. Multiple calls and emails/DM's have provided nothing. Our student lived here with 2 roommates who left a month early. Our student cleaned the apt and has pictures to prove it was clean. I asked her to do this not knowing mgmt would be totally disrespectful to her and the other students. Do not trust this management team. Linda Kiser Thanks for the prompt reply. Please check your voicemail and email as I have made multiple attempts to contact with no answers. Leave a current correct phone or answer when I call if you refuse to reply to my voicemails. The disrespectful canned reply does not work.

A place where you will spend the entire month of July without A/C in temps well over 87 degrees inside. And despite countless maintenance request, follow-ups, office contacts, emergency maintenance request you are ignored. No competence, no remorse. The previous maintenance man told us before leaving to another apartment complex "Get out as soon as you can. The people running this place don't know their mouth from their asshole, there's way better management and prices else where." He could not have been more right. Literally DO NOT LIVE HERE!!! Now resulting to court to try to get help for live able conditions.

Thanks for finally taking care of the issue Mary. It was actually pleasant to come home this evening to a landing free of debris. It should not have to come to negative reviews to compel action and adherence/enforcement of community rules. Have management actually do their job all the time. Huge bonus.

Hey Mary. I am the unit who has not had A/C for over a month. You told my family member to email you or come visit you at the office. Well I have attempted to visit the office multiple times and I emailed you giving you all the info and offered to provide you with all the records of the countless maintenance request, phone calls and emails to the office since you were "unaware of the unit without A/C for over a month." Still not getting a response. Is Yelp your preferred method of contact? Because no emails, portal request, phone calls seem to be working to get a response. Really sucks that your concern is with proving this issue and the many attempts at contacting for help with this issue rather than actually finding a solution. To me, finding a solution for the paying residents who have been without properly working A/C for majority of the summer would be the most important thing. Anyways if you read these reviews, do not live here unless you want to have to write a public review anytime you want a response. If you refer to the last review you'll see the previous maintenance man had a nice and seemingly accurate view of the office staff.

Not really worth the price of rent . They will not fix your things until weeks later but ask for rents days before it's due . Also lacks communication.

The community seems to be really cool. This is true until you meet the leadership team in the leasing office. Starting with the assistant manager who will ignore the protocol of first come, first served, the leasing agent who will tell you about how short they are and she is the only person working the weekend as she explains why she cannot process your application for four days. I really loved the tenant who came to tell the assistant manager her air conditioner wasn't working, and she was unable to get anyone to answer her maintenance request or the phone in the office. She tells the asst. manager that she is going to have to stay elsewhere and asks him that they pay for the hotel fee. He states that it is up to the manager, and that he doubts she will authorize it. When they show you who they are, you need to believe it! When you ask to speak to the manager, she is either not in or her door is closed. That seems to equate to she does not want to bother, and she could care less if you lease there or not. They truly demonstrate "what not to as a leasing agent". Save your self time and aggravation, stay FAR AWAY from this place. Finally, it is my opinion that the entire management team and most of the employees need a different line of work that doesn't involve any customer service. It has been a long time since I actually have witnessed this level of apathy from a sales team.

If you are a young professional looking for somewhere to live in Columbia, Canalside Lofts is definitely the place for you! After paying significantly more money for a one bedroom apartment in a sketchy area of Columbia, I moved into these apartments with two of my friends. I could not be any happier with the apartment amenities and location. The complex has two pools, a fitness center, a "lounge" area with a large TV and pool table, a dog park, and it is located right next to the beautiful Riverwalk Park. Additionally, it is a close drive to the Vista, West Columbia, and USC's campus. The apartments are all in great condition and very spacious for the price. My roommates and I just renewed our lease for another year, AND the complex was just named the Best Apartment Complex in Columbia by the Free Times! Definitely a wonderful place to live!

Both pools are closed due to maintenance issues. Still no new lounge chairs apparently they will take 12-15 weeks to come in. Went to office to speak with Mary and she doesn't work at this location so not sure how she was going to solve the issues

This is what the inside of my bedroom looks like and has looked like for a month now. Management cannot be bothered to fix this. Will be getting out as soon as there lease allows. Getting lots of promises but no actual repairs for 3-4 weeks.

Ever since being bought out by a new company they've been horrible about communication, will not come and fix anything, paying rent is impossible, and lastly they scammed my roommate and I into paying rent for two month after we moved out!

Management isn't helpful at all. All they are concerned with is charging fees and collecting rent. Increasing problem with undergraduate students moving in that tend to be loud and forget they have neighbors. Noise complaints were never properly handled. They never provided any help to potentially move. Kitchen fan never worked asked to fix multiple times. Overcharging for sheer location. Do not live here. It's a nightmare and getting out of your lease is costly.

The best place to live in Columbia if your renting. Affordable, clean, nice neighborhood and good location. It's a nice mix of college, after college and some families.

Awesome place to live!! Can't beat the location being right next to the river walk with super easy access to highway 26. The staff is world class with really great events for the residents like sushi nights, free tickets to sporting events, wine and design etc. Never had any problems with bugs or things not working, very pet friendly and you never have to worry about people being noisy. If you're looking for a great home then don't look any further than Canalside!!

Perfect location for young professionals in Columbia. Pet-friendly, easy access to the wonderful Riverfront Park, and cool neighbors to boot. There are two pools, a fitness center, and a game room - perfect for playing a game of pool with friends or watching the big football game. Highly recommend.

I moved here for the location, the greenspace and the open floorpan, but have stayed long enough to regret it. Management changes hands so frequently that there's rarely any carryover in staff between my visits. By my count, none of the services they claim to provide are still being offered free of charge: Trash Valet was marketed as a new way for us to be able to recycle (!!), then became a mandatory $20 a month service that rarely picked up according to its own schedule. Now we have a new company and new fines if we aren't home to put the trashcan in and out at odd hours. We used to have a nice recreation space that you could sign up to use, but then some jackasses ransacked it, so now it's off limits after 5/6 pm (depending on the day) and you have to fill out paperwork, put a credit card on file and pay a non-refundable $75 usage fee. Now to receive your mail, you need to pay $6 a month plus tax, plus fees for every day it waits for you to come pick it up and fees to put it on "vacation status." If you don't sign up for it (mandatorily) during a certain window, then you also have to pay an exorbitant fee to sign up after the fact. What was once nice lots for my dogs to run in is now being developed into more buildings, bringing with it a lot of noise, filth and unwanted construction traffic. Dogs have to give a DNA sample and be logged in an electronic system, and if a piece of dog shit is found on the property that corresponds to your dog's breed, you are fined. If you don't sign up for this violation of rights within a certain window of time, you guessed it, you have to pay another asinine hidden fee. The list goes on and on. The good news is that Columbia has several options for luxury apartments these days, so the need to live here to score a nice property is no longer necessary. Unless you want to be micromanaged by overbearing rule czars who will nickel and dime you to death, KEEP LOOKING.

I wanted to love Canalside. The neighbors are generally very nice, there is a lot of space for my dog, and the access to the walking path along the canal is fantastic. That said, I had a terrible experience here. When I first moved in, I had an awful bug problem (German cockroaches) that persisted until I had several visits from an exterminator and finally got maintenance to fix the weather stripping around my door. The washer and dryer also weren't installed in my unit when I moved in like they were supposed to be. But by far the worst problem has been the lack of security. I have had someone try to get in through my door in the middle of the night on two separate occasions, ending with me calling the police both times. The second time it happened twice in one night. I actually ended up moving apartments to the second floor due to security concerns, which was a huge expense and headache. My car was also broken into while I lived here, and I heard that a car was actually stolen here last year. For the amount you are paying in rent here, you should be able to sleep soundly and not worry that someone is going to try to break into your car or, worse, your apartment. Management needs to seriously reevaluate the security system if they expect to continue to charge the current rates.