The James at Canyon Creek Apartments — Attraction in Richardson

I rate this apartment as a 3/5 based on the new management but also shoddy apartment construction quality. If you’re looking for a luxury apartment, your money is better spent elsewhere.

A few other previous reviewers have mentioned the shoddy build quality of these brand-new construction apartments which appear to be luxury from the outside. I’s obvious from many small details that the apartment was put up very quickly with little regard for quality. The walls and windows are thin, and you can hear outdoor conversations and other noises through the windows. When we first moved in, the AC didn’t work (we moved in June!), doors wouldn’t close, the hot water in the showers didn’t work, and a toilet visibly leaked water on the floor. The carpet was dirty from construction crew and the tile in both bathrooms had dried plaster stuck to it that weren’t removed until Cortland (new management) took over.

While they fixed most of these outstanding maintenance issues immediately as they took over, I thought it was still worth mentioning regarding the quality of the apartment. Cortland’s maintenance and management are much better than Roscoe Property Management (RPM). They also allegedly offer an amazing 48 hour maintenance completion guarantee but unfortunately it’s not being offered right now due to COVID. It’s taken them 3 months to figure out how to bill for common area utilities and my apartment’s water meter usage. Now they’re saying it will be split over the next two month’s bills (with still no breakdown of the charges or even a total amount due). Yesterday they sent an email asking all residents who rent a garage from them to let them know otherwise they will be leased to someone else. The garages are in our lease contract. All of the staff is very friendly, and the management is good at listening to your concerns but not great at offering solutions.

My two biggest ongoing concerns are security and safety which are arguably the two most important factors when deciding where to live, especially during a global pandemic. At least two of the garages in my building were broken into and items stolen from, but Cortland refused to tell me how many of them in the entire property have been broken into. So then I asked for a secure lock on my garages similar to the keyless fob lock on our front doors and I was told they were too expensive and that if I wanted to purchase and install my own and remove it before move out, I could do that. Mind you the cost of one month's rent for each garage would cover one lock. Lastly and most importantly, they don’t take COVID seriously. While the city and county have a low infection, rate compared to the larger metro, it’s still common sense to use precautions such as wearing masks so we don’t get worse. One day I walked into the leasing office one staff member was not wearing a mask until they saw me wear one and then put one on while another staff member had one on, but their nose was sticking out of the mask. On multiple occasions when maintenance has come into my apartment (my safe place) to make repairs, they were not wearing masks even though I was. Most of the residents don’t wear masks in the hallways between apartments or in the common areas such as the mailroom. When I brought up these concerns with Taylor, the property manager, and expressed my interest to move out before my lease expired, she said she is taking COVID seriously and is now requiring all of her staff (including maintenance) to wear masks (I haven’t been in or requested maintenance recently to confirm) and there’s nothing she can do due to fair housing standards. She suggested if I see someone in the mailroom not wearing a mask to "not go in there and that if I’m wearing a mask, I’ll probably be okay." Enter at...

BE AWARE OF: 1- Last minute communications to residents regarding construction & changes. 2- No security for buildings or amenities, people from others apartment complexes often come to use the dog park, the pool, and could enter any building if they wanted. 3- community fees stayed the same but some services were cut like that refrigerator filters would need to be paid by residents themselves instead of being included in regular maintenance. 4- No enforcement on the non-smoking community amenity. People leave cigarette butts all over the building sidewalks and smoke weed late at night. 5- No response on any after hours calls you make. We waited for at least 1 full hour during a 2 am fire alarm and watched as no one from the complex showed up in a reasonable timeframe. 6- While it is very pet-friendly, residents leave pet poop everywhere including the dog park and the provided doggy bags are replaced after days of it being empty. 7- The gym is never cleaned professionally. The spin bike was broken before I moved in and broken on the day we left 14 months later even after it was brought up to the office. The cleaning wipes provided will be dried out and not changed ever. 8- the parking for building 1 is awful. Even more so when they made 90% into paid covered parking. So if you want to live in building 1 and don’t want to pay for parking, be ready to run your chances every time you go somewhere. Parking for building 1 is less than 1/2 the size of all the other building parking lots too. 9- They are sometimes strict about no trash on the days the valet service doesn’t come, but there’s only one dumpster for buildings 1-5 at the far end by the dog park so good luck. Valet service also comes super late. 10- there’s constant construction on renner Custer & greenside. As well as at least 1 accident at the red light on Custer and the toll frontage road so be aware when entering/exiting the community. 11- few community events and rarely anything after 5-6 pm. 12- be careful in the early morning hours as there was sometimes a man in his bathrobe and no shoes talking to himself near the dumpster, since there is no street lighting in that part of the complex, we made the management office aware and requested lighting for safety, the request was not considered. 13- if you have issues with electricity that are out of your control, you will be charged their standard fee for no service and management is not considerate about it. 14- buildings are newer but you can hear everything from your neighbors. when they eat, move things, walk around…..everything. 15- it’s evident that staff do not keep good notes or talk to each other. My roommate didn’t even get transferred their info over from when RPM took over from Cortland until the end of our year. Anytime we asked it get fixed, we were told it would be taken care of only to have to re-explain ourselves if someone different answered the phone.

Pros: pet friendly, ample walking trails around the complex, close to stores. If you don’t mind living with college students and you don’t need much from management, it’s a decent place. Annual rent increase wasn’t outrageous like a lot of places. Maintenance are good about knocking and leaving notes when they’ve entered your spaces. Units have decent...

Lived here about a year ago so I can safely write a review now:

We moved in right when RPM sold to Cortland and thank god they did, because RPM was awful and their leasing agents didn't know anything! While the Cortland leasing staff was amazing and always friendly, I can't say the same about the quality of the apartments. They look luxury, but you can tell they were in a hurry to build the units. We constantly had issues with our A/C and fridge, we also had a garage that was outrageously loud to open. I will say though that maintenance was always quick to answer calls even if they never really fixed anything. Walls are paper thin so you could hear all conversations and steps. Our old upstairs neighbors were so loud and belligerent that we had to call the cops one day and had to file a police report (they concluded domestic violence between family members). All the office did was continue to ask us to keep a "log". They said they would reach out but obviously nothing ever happened since they continued making noise all the way until they moved out. Then we finally knew peace and quiet until the new neighbors moved in.

If you're facing Greenside Dr, get ready to hear people outside talking or messing with your pets through the windows (I caught on multiple occasions, passerby's literally going up to my window to knock on the window just to wake up my cat). Also, people like to use Greenside as their personal race track, you can listen to street races past midnight or cars doing donuts at the light. The leasing office made me many promises of updates to the community only to be disappointed - we were told they were going to install a gate and fobs for the doors but couldn't due to weird issues with permits and ADA compliance. Some mornings I would wake up and go to my car to find weird racist propaganda on every windshield in the back lots. We were promised charging stations, but in my whole 15 months of staying there I didn't see anything go up, now that may have changed now so I will give them the benefit of doubt.

Now, I will say, the resident experience manager and property manager are extremely nice and did everything they could to make us feel comfortable - after the winter storm that year they offered to reimburse us for any lost groceries which was really generous.

Overall, it wasn't the best place, but also not the worst. The apartments are spacious and the ceilings are really tall on the first floor (which for a tall person is a major PLUS). The closets are huge and you have plenty of cabinet space in the kitchen. Would I lease again? No. Would I recommend this place to others, maybe, depending on your needs, I would just recommend everyone to do extensive research...