Grand Estates at Kessler Park — Attraction in Dallas

I really want to love my apartment, and almost do. I am in the Commerce floor plan, one bedroom one bath. I think for being in the heart of the ninth largest city in the United States, I feel safe and the price is right. Actually, the price was perfect. Being a runner in this area is amazing. Lake Cliff Park, as well as easy access to Katy Trail (via free public transit) and downtown make for scenic jogs. The Jefferson Viaduct bridge has a bike lane (may be the Santa Fe Trail, I am not sure). The area contains the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Trinity Skyline Trail, Bishop Arts, Methodist Hospital, and the new Dallas Streetcar for free quick transit downtown. The pool is beautiful and has its own view of downtown. The grounds are kept. The men and women in the office have really been friendly, informative, and trustworthy. I would say they have made the experience from the beginning an enjoyable one. I have to walk a bit far to my mailbox (there are two on the grounds), but that is expected as this is a pretty huge complex. Parking can be hard to find. There are garages and covered parking, but several times my visitors have had to walk a short distance once finding a spot. My bicycle was stolen, which was chained on the ground level under the stairwell (where I was told to chain it if I did not want to carry it three floors to my apartment-- I take responsibility for not taking the extra effort to secure it in my apartment). They posted a warning letter regarding crime, stating that they cannot guarantee safety and are not responsible for theft related to the gates being broken (they are literally always broken). The main thing that has really bothered me about this apartment is the condition on move in. The maintenance staff was still in my apartment when I began the move in, with the carpet still wet. The carpet was coming up in certain areas, several tiles were broken in the kitchen, the mirror and cabinet in the bathroom were heavily tarnished, and some of the blinds are chipped or are missing pieces. The carpet has been fixed. They still have not replaced the kitchen tiles (I have been in this apartment for almost four months, have submitted three requests to staff, and spoken to the apartment manager twice regarding the issue... it is not the management, it seems to be the maintenance staff). The bathroom was labeled "cosmetic," and will not be fixed or replaced. Also the windows are old, single-pane which let in all outside noise. I hear cars going over the speed bumps, birds chirping, people talking as if I were actually sitting outside while lying in the bed or sitting in the living room. The staff said they could reseal the windows... this has either not been done, or was ineffective. The hospital directly across Beckley is a Level I Trauma hospital (one of three in Dallas), therefor receive the helicopters all day, all night. I would rate the inside noise from 0-10, 0 being silent, 10 being no sound barrier, a 2. It seems the layout of the apartments have eliminated the adjoining walls to apartments. However, the outside noise level coming in is a 10 and has been disruptive to sleep. I love the vaulted ceilings, which made the third floor ideal. I love the fireplace. I love the laundry room, and all the little things like the built-in shelving and two doors to the bathroom (from the hallway or the bedroom). I love the cabinets-- they are simple and clean. The appliances are decent. Only the smaller of the plugin burners on the oven are the correct size, making pancakes difficult to make. :) The refrigerator is loud, but has an ice maker. There is plenty of storage space in the apartment, and an outside closet. There are a ton of electrical outlets, even in the walk-in closet. The kitchen is equipped with a pantry. The sliding glass door to the balcony/patio also has a screened door to let in fresh air bug free. The hot water does not last too long... the tub is so huge, you cannot fill it up. The price was right, the location I love, and the rest is history. I...

We could not wait to move out of this complex. From the moment we moved in it was a very frustrating experience dealing with this very unorganized staff. For example, the day we moved in we drove from Houston. Stephen, the now manager, was aware of this. The day before I even called to confirm with him our arrival time to the complex. When we arrived the keys had not been cut and the garage door opener had not yet been programmed. We had to wait over an hour and a half just sitting in the moving truck before they had our keys ready. Then when walking into the apartment we noticed so many areas that were still dirty and quite disgusting. We were promised that a cleaning lady would come back out to clean the apartment and when she came she only did the kitchen, made a comment about how dirty the place truly was, stated she would be back the next day and we never saw her again. Another frustrating experience was finding out that someone had our electricity switched yet no one at the office could tell us who ordered our company to be switched. When we spoke to the electricity company they stated that someone within the apartment complex team was responsible yet no one there could tell us who. Of course they were glad to charge us with additional fees and penalized us because of this. We felt completely scammed and when trying to explain to Oscar the head manager what had happened he did not seem to care. It was so upsetting owing all those additional fees especially during the holidays when we weren’t even the ones to request our electricity provider be switched in the first place. Then there was the incident with the water damage that no one came to fix and it began to develop mold on the window sill. There were multiple times while communicating with the staff that it turned into a frustrating experience. When you walk into the office they hardly greet anyone. The staff always seemed lost as well. Even down to the day when we were turning in our keys and we asked if there was a receipt that they could give us stating we were checking out and turning our keys in. For some reason they were completely thrown off by the question and had no idea what to do. The complex just seems very poorly managed and I would absolutely discourage any friends or family members from moving into this place. We chose to live in a home that was further away from work even though this complex was closer simply because we just couldn’t take living there anymore. Our current housing situation is a complete 180 just showing how important good management is. As for the apartment itself, it is definitely very rundown and worn. There was one closet that had a horrible odor and no matter what we did it never went away. The “wooden floor” is cheap plastic tile that continuously comes up and the bathtub has the loudest squeaking noise we’ve ever encountered. Also, the thermostat is a needle thermostat that is inaccurately calibrated and inconsistent. Really we could go on but the main reason we share our experience is so that you may consider it when evaluating which home to place...

I lived here for a year and would not recommend.

The first week there we put in a maintenance request to have the refrigerator that came with the apartment hooked up to the water line. Frustrating that the apartment was not move in ready, but whatever. Shortly after that the fridge started leaking and the carpet near the fridge got soaked with water. We put in a maintenance request right away and got no response for a day or two. I called the office as I felt like a water leak was time sensitive. The person I spoke to at the office was pretty rude and essentially scolded me for calling about a maintenance request. A couple more days went by and still had not heard from maintenance and the soaked spot on the carpet was getting bigger. I called the office again and this time they said "oh, yeah that is an emergency. I'll send someone out right away" They were pretty quick to get someone out after that, but as multiple days had passed since the problem started, they now had to remove most of the carpet and replace it. This also took multiple days. They left a few fans and instructed us to let them run during the day to dry out the floor. The fans were left for about a week if I remember correctly, and I had to call the office again to ask that they remove the fans. All of this during our first 2 weeks of living there. Fun!

We had many maintenance requests during our time living here, the ceiling above the shower leaking, garbage disposal breaking, etc. and for about 75% of those requests, several days would pass (many times more than a week) before we would call the office and ask if they could please send someone out. We started noticing the maintenance team would mark our requests "complete" but never show up to actually complete the requests. So many times we were left to call the office and ask them to send someone out.

There were issues with the gates not working and being left open during most of the time we lived here, which may have been part of the cause of some of the car break ins overnight. I saw people's car windows smashed in many times. I believe they replaced the gate system, but it was broken for quite some time before that happened.

Even when trying to schedule the final apartment walkthrough, I emailed the employee who sent us our move out documents twice over the span of about 2 weeks asking to schedule on the last day of our lease. He did not respond to either email so I emailed the general management team and he responded saying he had scheduled my walkthrough. Great! Just would have been helpful if that had been communicated the first or second time I had asked weeks before.

Sure, the rent is pretty cheap for the area, but even so, not...