Brock B.
Yelp
To give this review some context: my wife and I moved into a one-bedroom at Flats 130 in late 2010 and stayed there for a year and a half, to mid-2012. The building had opened about two months before we moved in, so for the first several months, the place was almost eerily quiet sometimes.
Let's start with the good stuff: the Harris Teeter is right downstairs, which is enormously convenient. The metro station is half a block, and Capital Bikeshare station right out front. The dog park out back is perfect for quick nighttime walks, and the two big grills in the main courtyard are nice to have. Most of the people I dealt with in the leasing office were fantastic.
But: I would never move back there.
The biggest issue for us was that management was unresponsive. We lived right above the club room, and looked out into the main courtyard (which, admittedly, we should not have chosen). The club room and courtyard were both supposed to close at midnight, but nobody ever did anything about it. People would be out there yelling and laughing at 1 or 2 in the morning on a regular basis, and the concierge told us they couldn't do anything about it. One time that I went down to complain, the concierge waved me over to whisper that he had no power to do anything, but as a resident, I could call the police to come break up the party. I just got better at negotiating with drunks, so I could at least get them back inside.
We talked to building management--Pei Pei in particular, since she was the property managemer at the time (not sure if she still is)--and they kept assuring us that they would send out an email reminding everyone to keep it down out there, or that they would change policies with the way the concierge handled it, or whatever: nothing ever happened. Pei Pei just stopped responding to our emails. No reminder went out to residents, and the problem never really got better. Mind you, in the time we lived there, residents received a reminder every few weeks to pick up after their pets, especially if they duked in the hallway...but management never sent anything about being halfway decent neighbors after midnight.
Then, there were the stolen bikes. There are about a half-dozen locked bike storage areas down in the parking garage. It was pretty convenient, since you could ride in and out without taking the elevator, and it seemed pretty secure. You first need a key fob to get down to that level of the garage, then you need a separate key for the storage area (a copy of which was given to any resident who had a bike). Seemed pretty secure, but still, someone (probably a resident) got in there on a couple different occasions and a few bikes were stolen.
In response, management decided to replace the lock on the storage areas, and henceforth, the convenience of the bike storage would be annulled: in order to get in, you would need to leave your ID at the concierge desk to get the key to storage, and return it after you had taken out or returned your bike. Real pain in the ass.
Except...they didn't actually change the lock. For whatever reason, I had a feeling the whole thing was BS, so I just tried the key I had been using all along, and sure enough: they may have changed the lock, since they key no longer went in smoothly, but it was keyed the same, so they accomplished nothing.
I had hoped that things would improve after Bozzuto took over management from Lincoln, but no such luck: the bike storage incident was after they took charge. They also got rid of the concierge staff and brought in their own people. I know I complained before that they didn't do much about the late parties in the courtyard, but the Beverly and Lorenzo, who were there weekdays and evenings, were fantastic. Bozzuto ended the contract with the concierge company and brought in their own people a couple weeks before we moved out. I only dealt with them once or twice, but they didn't seem to know what they were doing.
Oh, and I came back the day after we moved to clean the apartment, and there was a huge ad in the lobby, for some spa across town. It was one of those tall, 7'x3'-ish ones you see in booths at conferences. As I was turning in my keys, two different people arrive home and complained about being advertised to in the building they were already paying too much rent at. I hear they took it down not long after.
I would only recommend this building if you're in your early 20s and will be up or out late on weekends anyway. Oh, and *definitely* don't get one of the fancy, expensive Signature Flats: they face the nightclub Ibiza, so your entire place will be bumping a few nights a week.