Volta on Pine — Attraction in Long Beach

Home at last!

My boyfriend and I were looking to move into Downtown Long Beach and had spent several weeks touring different homes — from guest back-house units, to 400 sq. ft studios, to luxury buildings — we had truly seen it all. Before heading over to Volta on Pine, we have previously toured and almost signed with AMLI Park Broadway. The experience over there was painful. Their entire team was disorganized, disconnected with one another (our contract had gotten passed around and lost several times), and ultimately we lost about $150 trying to apply there but pulled out last minute because of the lack of attention and poor customer service. A total waste of time, money, and energy.

So... when we finally ended up at Volta it was like our prayers were ANSWERED. We had sent an online inquiry on a Sunday and within a few hours we received a call from Brian who kindly set up a same-day tour. Still feeling queasy from our experience at AMLI, we were hesitant driving over, but as soon as we walked in we were greeted by Brian and the rest is history!

Well.. I guess I should relay you a little more detail than that.

Brian walked us through both buildings — there's the Pine Building (Building A) and the Pacific Building (Building B) and thoroughly explained all the amenities, community guidelines, and of course all the pros AND the cons of the three different units he walked us through. What made the experience so positive was that before walking us through the three options, he asked us what we were looking for and on-the-spot(!) tailored our tour to what we were prioritizing. He really took into account what we said and to no surprise — we fell in love with the third option and signed the lease the same-day.

Yes, I said the same thing to myself — "damn, he's that good!?". But all jokes aside, Brian really showcased the building's best features in the most honest way and when you combine genuine, helpful staff with a great building/unit there's really no point in looking anywhere else!

We've been living at Volta on Pine for about two weeks now and are so pleased with the staff, the building, and the other tenants. It's definitely a "young, hip" community of working professionals. We frequent the fully-equipped gym (we love the TRX equipment and spin bikes) and the Sky Deck where we've been watching baseball playoffs on the TV outside, so it's safe to say these amenities don't just sit around collecting dust.

Shout out to Brian, truly, for helping us finally find the perfect place in Downtown Long Beach! We still bump into him from time to time as he's hard at work touring potential tenants and even staying late (it was literally 9:30pm on a weekday and he was still working) to make sure the Sky Deck was in good condition, and we definitely have peace of mind knowing he's there to answer any questions we might have.

Grateful to call...

I moved out in March ‘25 after one year due to the growing concerns surrounding personal safety, frequent fire alarms, and lackluster amenities already cited in the other 1-star reviews that came before mine. I’m very fortunate that my car was never broken into nor have my mail packages ever been stolen, but I knew about them happening to other tenants on a very regular basis, leaving me always nervous about it.

Below is a more detailed list of problems I experienced that caused me to ultimately move out:

Frequent fire alarms going off roughly once or twice per month almost the entire time I lived in the apartment, half of which went off at night. They’re very loud and very jarring. Whether a lot of them were false alarms or legitimate, I don’t know, but they were definitely excessive. This is an even bigger problem if you own pets, who are even more sensitive to sudden loud noises than people in general.

A fire broke out in Jan’25 in an apartment unit on the floor below mine, which caused the water sprinkler system in several units on my floor (that weren't touched by the fire and had nothing to do with it) to trigger (including one just two doors down from me), causing flooding throughout most of my entire floor, mayhem, and understandably several VERY angry tenants.

Apartment management has also seemingly become detrimentally more lax in their screening of new tenants, as ones on my floor have moved in and started causing problems for everyone else around them; heaping mounds of trash being left out in the hallway and not being properly disposed of into designated trash collection chutes, irresponsible dog owners allowing their dogs’ urine and feces onto the hallway floors without cleaning up after them, and weed-smoking (and very possibly drug-induced) tenants/visitors making noises after-hours (on top of the lingering stench they always left behind).

Malfunctioning and inoperable elevators. The most egregious ongoing instance was one of the elevators in my building being out for the entire last 3 months of my residence there. You quickly realize how much foot traffic is created and consequently how much more time you end up having to wait (a long time in most cases) when only 1 out of 2 elevators is working for an entire 11-story multi-unit apartment building.

A growing mentally unstable and erratic homeless population in the immediate area surrounding the apartment complex. It wasn’t uncommon for me to witness them or some other questionable individual hanging right outside the front door entrance to the apartment building. I only learned after moving in that this has become an alarmingly growing issue for the area roughly the last 8 years or so, from talking with other residents...

Garage gates would break and remain open for anyone to come in— multiple car break-in’s, frequent stolen packages, prolonged elevator breakdowns, poop and pee in the hallways and gym, tv’s and equipment in the gym often did not work or malfunctioned, trash cans literally overflowing throughout the week and every weekend, insufficient soundproofing (always heard the next door neighbors and the neighbors above us walking), it’s also located by that rite-aid parking lot where people would meet up at night and play loud music or there would be people yelling during the night in the alley, witnessed a car get stolen right next to the apartments, because it’s next to rite-aid and other apartments, if you have the windows open for airflow you will for sure be woken up every morning before 6am due to the garbage trucks or delivery trucks, and after management changed to Advanced Management Company the front desk never answered the phones and management never responded to our emails. Our apartment was not ready by move-in, told us our utilities wouldn’t be more than $60, but we were always charged $100-200, they have a poor system for finding out how many parking spots they have available and do not have a list of which tenant is in which spot. We got maybe $300 back from our deposit even tho we never got the pre-move out inspection (even tho we repeatedly asked for one) and after the fact that lovely maintenance guy came and patched up all of our holes from hanging things for free and said that there wasn’t anything in the apartment that was above normal wear and tear. They broke the contract multiple times like not sending us an itemized bill of what was taken out of our deposit, not sending the check until 1.5 month later, and lied on the check dating it weeks before we actually got it. Unhelpful and uncaring staff office staff— only nice when they’re trying to get you to become a tenant. Afterwards, they’ll become unresponsive, cold, and gave out false emails. The 1 star is for the cleaning and maintenance people. But at least this taught us to do our due diligence before considering a...