Allegro at Jack London Square Apartments — Attraction in Oakland

Keep on my mind my review is coming from paying prices pre-COVID.

Allegro is not the worse place you could live but given the prices in comparison to some of the other properties within a mile radius it leaves a lot to be desired.

I’ll start with the positives. It’s in a great location. You’re not far from BART, there’s a lot of bars and restaurants nearby. You can walk to the water and get great views. The staff is pretty responsive to emails. If you have questions or concerns they will respond in a fairly timely manner.

That’s it.

Here are the negatives:

Staff: While the staff is very responsive, at times their responses aren’t always the best. Shortly after we moved in, we were constantly disrupted by our upstairs neighbors at 1, 2 and 3am with very loud and alarming domestic issues. We had to call the police on multiple occasions because we were uncertain that everyone upstairs was safe. We contacted the office and initially they offered to switch our apartments but we’d have to pay another deposit. Which was not ideal because we obviously had just paid to move into the one we chose. After probably 2-3 months of constant night time disruptions and the warnings not being adhered by our upstairs neighbors they finally granted us a transfer at no cost to another apartment. This came at the cost of essentially signing another 12 month lease but we figured this was fine we could ride it out until the end of that lease. Unfortunately due to COVID, my partner had to find a new job and we needed to move. We explored moving away from a Windsor property but the cost to break the lease would be too high and opted to transfer to another Windsor property. When we spoke with the property manager, Angela, she told us the process but what we would later find out after applying to the current property we are now at there were additional steps to the process she failed to outline. Which was extremely frustrating, luckily Anna, another leasing consultant responded to our email and properly outlined the process and made sure that were taken care of.

Apartment and Building Quality After all the back and forth with the leasing office when we were finally transferred to our new apartment it had a number of issues and our first one did as well. The laminate in the kitchen was coming up, there were big gaping holes under the countertops I’m guessing from when they installed the counter tops, the trim from the cabinets in the bathroom literally fell off one day, the door bell constantly needed attention because it either broke or got stuck, the blinds are those cheap vertical blinds constantly needed replacements, the washer and dryer are in a carpeted area of the bedroom so the carpet always got dirty. Everything is just OLD. Our second apartment the sliding doors to get to the washer and dryer and they had metal vents on the door that were broken and sticking out on move in. It would have definitely cut you if you weren’t paying attention. When we requested to have it replaced, the door they replaced it with looked like it had been sitting in a dusty basement for years. Additionally someone had broken the railing in the elevator MONTHS before COVID made repairs difficult they didn’t fix it. It was left hanging off the wooden panels for months. Then finally when they removed it they haphazardly filled the holes in with something but it looked awful.

During the winter, expect your PGE to be extremely high because the apartments aren’t properly sealed. We had to place a towel at the bottom of the door leading to the balcony to prevent cold air from coming in.

Packages: We had a quite a few packages stolen. In particular one day, I came down to the garage where the parcel locker had every locker was opened and packages were torn open. This is something a lot of buildings have a hard time with but definitely keep an eye on your deliveries.

Overall if Allegro was priced at where they are now due to COVID, before COVID we would have stayed. Do yourself a favor and look at every property in Jack London before...

Because I traveled fairly regularly it was a place to rest my head, and what I can honestly say is that the neighbors I had around me were the best part. To highlight other pros - I thought that it was conveniently situated near transportation options and loved the walkability to Jack London.

There are a few things that, if I were there on a regular basis, would give me serious concerns -

1. Every time I went into the car garages, I noticed that bikes locked up there regularly were missing tires or frames (whichever pieces weren't locked to the rack).

2. I had my issues with my car tires twice while living there. In the most recent incident, someone placed nails in three out of four of my tires and took the nail heads off, ensuring all my tires would deflate over time and be unfixable without professional. The first time I had tire issues I convinced myself it could have happened anywhere, but given the amount of time I traveled and left my car parked in the garage, and the fact that my tires were damaged twice leads me to think the culprit is someone who could access my car for long periods of time.

3. The area outside the buildings smells strongly of urine largely because of the turf that is placed there to give dogs a place to use the bathroom on a walk. The problem is this turf sits on top of concrete so the drainage is nonexistent. This also attracts a crowd of what I believe to be fruit flies, so coming in and out of the building always is annoying.

4. A neighbor had an incident involving stalking by another resident and ultimately had to move out because they did not feel safe.

5. My experience moving out with them reminded me just how much the complex was a corporation. I admit readily I missed my walkthrough being sick, and I would have used that to push back. I left the complex actually owing them money despite my efforts to do a deep cleaning and carpet cleaning. I didn't get my security deposit back. I wasn't allowed to sublease. The inflexibility was disappointing and a reminder that being a "good neighbor" and "community resident" really goes one way. They are a business first; goodwill comes as a...

Hey Allegro,

I just want to give a special shout out and thank you to Lisa who saved the day when my mother-in-law was visiting from out of town last week.

It was a normal day, around mid morning, when my mother-in-law Cheryl remembered she left her purse in her rental car outside our building. Fortunately she hadn't been at our place very long, so she went down to grab it while I was also taking our toddler for a walk. We crossed paths at the lobby elevator as Lisa was there to make sure I got a package because Luxer was down.

Really nice timing.

We went back up to our apartment and about 5 or 10 minutes later Lisa was at our door ushering me to move Cheryl's car because people were trying to break into it.

On top of that, she provided a spot in our garage for Cheryl's rental so we could be safe.

Lisa was paying attention and took amazing care of us, which she has done since I've met her, but this was exceptional.

We just had our second child, who at this point was only a handful of days old. A break-in would have soured a lovely week.

So thank you again Lisa! We...