| rev:text
| - I just moved out of the 44 Monroe building after a 10 month lease and I was counting the days to leave. We chose the location after leaving the Summit condo and wanted a central location. I have to agree with Elle V.'s review about the cons of the place. We were in the one bedroom floorplan D, 1310 sq ft on the 11th floor facing NE.
The Good: Lack of bugs. I never once saw a spider, a nat, anything. We faced the big net just north of the building and I loved being able to look out over the city and mountains. We never paid more than $80 for our electric. Location in downtown (closer to city center than the Summit) and easy access to I-10. There was never any neighbor noise between floors or walls. Much better construction than a 2-3 story apartment complex. Trash shoots and recycling on your floor! I've always had to walk my garbage down to big, smelly bins and this was a FANTASTIC feature. Non busy gym but small and terrible views for your workout. Fast service on maintenance and Mike was always friendly. The counters and floors hide dirt (which is kind of a toss up since I hated not being able to tell how clean the surfaces were until you cleaned them and saw the dirt). Nice finishes in kitchen with travertine floors, granite countertops and gas stove. The closet in the D floor plan is located in the bathroom which is really convenient for getting ready in the morning. Common areas are well cleaned.
The Cons: Expensive rent. I realize that you pay for the location and the building but $1736 for a one bdrm is a LOT. When we were offered our renewal, the price increased to $1882. At the date of this writing, they are currently advertising our unit online for $1642 (before they add parking at $100).
I found the unit to be noisy from city noise. The lightrail bell every 20 min, the firetruck station, the police sirens, the helicopters, the fast cars....it all added up to a very noisy home. Maybe this is typical of downtown living but I found it to be annoying. We were also low enough to hear the alley dumptrucks at 6am and the parking garage to the north that got cleaned at 10:30pm. It sounded like a leaf blower for 2 hours. Super annoying!
The dishwasher was very temperamental and wasted way too much soap when it never emptied out during the wash. Forget about using those nifty dishwashing packets everyone is going to.
The stacked washer and dryer were some of the WORST appliances I've ever used. The washer took forever and dryer would wrinkle EVERYTHING. And then beeped when it was done until you stopped it. It demanded your attention. I tried everything I could to not have our jeans come out a twisted wreck but never figured it out. The stacked configuration was a pain to try and fold clothes so we had to invest in a wheeled laundry cart and an over the door clothes hanger.
Other cons include some of the weirdest neighbors. We were once threatened by a drunk person on the elevator that they would pee on us (you can't make this stuff up). Some people were young professionals but none were overly friendly. You would encounter people in the elevator you just saw on the street that you thought were homeless. Nope. They were headed to the 22nd floor. There aren't too many resident functions but I'm not sure how many of these people you would actually want to meet.
We parked on the 6th floor which meant 20 turns one way if you wanted to go ANYWHERE! Want to run quick to the grocery store? HA! Quick doesn't exist at this location and the front two spots are metered during the week and always full at night. If you decided to walk to get something instead, the homeless people are everywhere and you can't walk anywhere without one of them asking for money. Or randomly screaming. Or hitting on you. Never fun for a girl by herself.
The pool only gets sun a few hours and is the most boring pool EVER. The ONE grill is constantly broken or in use and generally smokers take over the patio for get togethers. The windows were cleaned twice in 10 months so we had to look at dirty windows from a sprinkling of rain and a sad bird outline for several months. There is a lack of security (people standing near garage door), but yet each floor is locked down and you can only access your floor and the garage level so that was a little comforting. I also once left my portable fan and on another occasion, a $35 MP3 player in the gym and never saw either again. Apparently paying a lot in rent doesn't mean your classy or honest.
When you have visitors, they hate coming to the area. Downtown's one way streets are a nightmare to anyone unfamiliar and if they come at night, all the nearby parking is taken and there is no visitor parking in the building. Staff at the front desk aren't overly friendly and you are lucky to get a smile when you come home. Moving in and out is a major pain because their loading dock is small and will cost you extra in mover fees.
Overall, we were so glad to leave.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)