55 West Apartments — Attraction in Orlando

When you weigh the luxuries against the annoyances, it's overpriced.

THE GOOD:

Thick walls. Neighbors can scream at the top of their lungs and you won't hear it (you can from the hallway, but not from your unit). I very rarely hear noise from the neighboring night clubs, and they don't last more than a few minutes as the club is opening/closing. Most of the trains that pass by are unnoticeable (from a higher floor).

The security personnel is courteous and available 24-7.

Responsive front desk. If you have a noise complaint, don't complain to security. They will quiet the neighbor in that instance, but that doesn't stop the neighbor from resuming the disturbance another day. If you have a noise complaint, take it to the leasing staff. They will take action to prevent future occurrences.

The place is kept pretty clean and neat. The views and the decks are gorgeous. It feels like living in a resort.

Very pet-friendly (still the usual breed restrictions though).

Walking distance to lots of stuff, and lots of places will deliver straight to your room.

Friendly neighbors! The overwhelming majority are polite, courteous, and dressed like humans (in case you're coming from an area like my old one where it wasn't unusual to pass "people of Wal-Mart" on the street).

Trash chutes just seconds away from your door, so I never have large accumulations of trash, no annoying trash days to remember, and no long walks to take out the trash.

Tolerance. There doesn't appear to be any overt racism, sexism, or homophobia among the staff or residents, which is always a nice environment to be in.

THE BAD:

Noise. When I signed the lease, I knew there would be some noise, which is why I sampled the apartment before signing. The train and night club noise seemed tolerable. The walls are so thick, that as mentioned above, you can't hear neighbors no matter how loudly they scream. Turns out, people are capable of making more noise than that, and they do. The walls are super thick and keep out most noise from neighbors, but not all. One neighbor for some reason blasted stereo and TV simultaneous, beyond full volume, such that standing at the opposite end of the hallway it made my ears hurt. That was the only neighbor loud enough to penetrate the thick walls. It disrupted me at my desk while I tried to work. There was also the troll train. Most of the trains that go by are so quick and quiet that I don't notice them, but there is one train driver who does not abide by the legally mandated horn blowing pattern, and instead just crawls by at a snail's pace laying on the horn the entire time, with a little vibrato in it, without letting up, and he passes by every week night at 11pm, 1am, and 3am. Police sirens and music from events conducted in the Church Street Station downstairs can be heard at all hours of the night every night, albeit faintly. If neighbors and train drivers obeyed the rules, the noise levels would be tolerable. But they don't, so they're not.

The dog walk is too small. It also closes from 10pm to 7am, so you might miss it depending on your work schedule. Many residents don't pick up their dog's poop, so it's unhealthy to be there or let your dog lie in the grass. They need to expand the dog area over the garage, build an enclosed play area, hire dedicated poop cleaners, and open the deck 24/7.

It's not smoke-free. Therefore, smokers frequently stink up the elevator and the pool deck so the other 80% of us who don't smoke can't enjoy it.

Potheads are as bad as the regular smokers, and sometimes a pothead neighbor's weed stink seeps into my unit through the door and vents, and it's disgusting.

BOTTOM LINE: This place would get 5 stars from me if they expanded the dog walk and cleaned up the poops, extended the deck hours, prohibited smokers, and fought against troll train drivers. The rent rate is worth it to stay here for many years if they could work on those issues. Until then, this place is overpriced. Because of the smokers and the one obnoxious train driver, I will not...

There was so much wrong with living here there’s no way to list it all. Apartment flooded 10-15 times, from washing machine drain, from under the wall, and had multiple sink back-flows resulting in fowl smelling gray water flowing all the way down the hallway, destroying flooring, towels, clothes. You know those checklists you fill out when doing a move-in inspection? Our “newly renovated unit” had many issues we saw right away and put on that form. Building took notes and pictures. Waiting waiting waiting… nothing got fixed. Put in maintenance requests, nothing got fixed. The flooding didn’t get fixed until they finally called in a third party plumber. Don’t get me wrong, the maintenance team was awesome, but they didn’t have the resources. At one point we were completely unexpectedly hit with an over $1k electric bill. We went back and forth with the utility company and the building, each one blaming each other, until ultimately our power was shut off and we were forced to pay. Magically, months later, we were alerted by the building that they would be replacing some of the units utility meters. On top of it all, the employee we thought we were communicating with, that we thought was working to get things fixed after we moved in, turns out they no longer were working there, and we were never informed of that. I do feel for the staff, they were always very kind and I believe tried their best, but something is very wrong with this place, sometimes it felt like a part time job just living there. I should also mention that this was the first apartment I’ve lived in that didn’t have or maybe just didn’t use a security alert system. Found that out the hard way when my roommate was taking his dog out and the elevator doors opened up to a team of police aiming rifles at him. Found out what happened from other residents that happened to catch the action on ring doorbells hours later. I’ve heard some people have gotten much luckier with their specific units, and I do hope the building gets it together, as you can’t beat the location and the view. From what got destroyed in the flooding, to having to fix things ourselves, to our ridiculous utility bills, to taking off work to deal with flooding, we lost thousands of dollars living here, which I should also mention, management said they would look into getting us a rent reduction for our remaining months living there, and then later said they didn’t remember ever saying that. But that’s hearsay. I wish the best of luck to all the employees we had positive experiences with especially the front desk and maintenance team, current residents, and future residents. I feel bad leaving this review, but management has heard all of this and no action was taken to reimburse us or make improvements, and now after moving out, they’ve asked for my feedback. (They send a survey and if you had a positive experience it routes you to leave a google review. If you had a negative experience it asks you to click a button that leads to their own form on their website. Go figure.)

EDIT (Response): I feel for whoever has to write these replies because you can go back 2 years and find reviews with the same issues. This is directed at upper management. You didn’t value my feedback when I lived there, you do now that I left a public review. Regarding my areas of feedback; why didn’t you “utilize them as we strive to improve our services and community.” when I lived there? “Don’t hesitate to reach out”. How? Please tell me how because when I lived there it was impossible to get in touch with anyone. And let’s be real, everyone from property manger down probably hates 55 West too. You have 10+ years of data RIGHT HERE on what’s going wrong. I’m happy to provide photographic data as well. Hire more staff, raise more capital. You just got a $125m valuation, call up Mark Hafner and get a bankroll. You have my information, have someone reach out to me by all means, someone who can get me my 12 months of pain and suffering (rent) back. Mr. Buck, please turn this building around. Residents...

A ripe case for Housing Discrimination!

I am going to have to give them 1 star (because 0 is not an option). I went in yesterday after rescheduling a tour. The representative, (Jacob L...), sent me an email expressing regret that I missed my first appointment and offered an opportunity to reschedule. I was 90% sure I would go with another apartment complex, but I felt bad about missing my first appointment. Thus, I decided to drive downtown to check it out. If the place was phenomenal, I would have seriously considered it.

I found pay parking across the street from the complex. Once inside the complex, the guards seemed rather nice but it took about 10 minutes (calling and beating on the door) for them to locate someone from the leasing office to see me.

I am going to do my best to stay away from the ad hominem attacks and just give you facts. The guy (he identified himself as Jacob) shows up and asks if I had an appointment. I told him I have an appointment for 2:30 with Jacob. He avers that it's impossible because he has a 3:00 PM and a 4:00 PM appointment, but no 2:30 PM. I checked my email to pull up the correspondence between he and I and he was correct. I actually had the appointment at 3:00 PM.

The man then asks me my name (the email correspondence proof was insufficient), and went to "check his schedule." He came back out and said, we never had an appointment. Remind you, I am showing him the proof on my cell phone. I then asked him, well who is Jacob L...? He stated he was, but there was no appointment.

I now needed to reconcile why was this man not willing to show me an apartment when I clearly had an appointment - and I am showing him proof (email correspondence between he and I) on my cell phone.

The only thing I can think of is housing discrimination. I am African American and I showed up to the appointment in gym clothes. The man looked at me and quickly judged that I was not worthy of his time. Forget the fact that I brought in well over $160K last year - my skin color and clothing told him all he needed to know. [my opinion]

I can assure you that during discovery (legal term), it could easily be established that he lied and discriminated. If I had the patience, I would sue. I will, however, say this: If anyone else experiences something similar - we may have a class-action suit.

Because I did not get a chance to view the apartment during my scheduled appointment - I unfortunately cannot tell you how it looks.

Let's suspend disbelief and assume that the slot was double booked (another client booked online and I booked via email correspondence). What's the proper procedure when clients are mistakenly double booked? The response/ procedure I received was a sardonic remark about not having an appointment and the agent walking off - leaving me standing there.

Lastly, the two guards were sitting there and I had a colleague with me. The last time I felt this embarrassed was during a deployment to Afghanistan. That is, however, a different story for...