Sahara Apartments — Attraction in Tucson

So I’m actually a returning resident! I lived here from Sept 2022-Sept 2023 and I absolutely loved my apartment and the staff. At the time, I moved out, in hopes of finding a larger space as this was the ONLY reason why I didn’t renew my lease then. I have just moved in again as I moved in May 31, 2025 and this is about my third week now as a returning resident. I must say- Ida is truly the best leasing consultant (I would say manager as well since she was actually the manager when I was a resident back in 22-23) as she remembered me instantly even just from the phone call I made back in May asking if there was availability. Just from that alone- how many apartment staff can you say the same of? Zero! She remembered me because she genuinely cares about each and every resident who lives here , past AND present. I have been in the office almost everyday as I just moved in and naturally have been receiving packages as Ida every single day says hello and asks if there’s anything I need or whatever she can do to make my move in a smooth as possible. Each day I encounter Ida, Felix, or John, I am truly thankful that this complex had an apartment available as I feel blessed and genuinely happy that this complex has a wonderful staff who truly wants to see this complex not just full, but full of happy, secure residents! I’ve had a couple of work orders already which isn’t an odd thing as apartment living often comes with that- what is rare however is the amazing immediate attention to the work orders from not just the office staff but maintenance as well. I must stress that the leasing consultant, Ida, and the maintenance team Felix and John were here when I was a resident in 22-23 and are STILL here now that I have moved in again. That shows that this staff CARES about this complex and who lives in it! And I must say, their work ethic and determination to ensure a resident’s comfortable stay is unmatched, and you can take that from someone who has lived in 5+ apartment complexes here in Tucson and can speak to various complexes and how they just don’t match up to Sahara. I want to shout out Felix, the maintenance supervisor for truly going above and beyond with my maintenance orders and fixing the issue less than 24 hours of him being notified of it. He took care to not step on any of my white rugs and was gentle with my surrounding furniture for the maintenance issue he was fixing and ensured to clean up after he was done. It’s the small things that truly make or break a resident’s experience. I also must shout out the residents themselves as I’ve made a couple new friends already! I also had a package that was delivered just on the lawn area and a wonderful resident named Blake actually secured it for me and let me know he had it safe and even helped me take it up to my apartment which was a big lift since it was heavy and I’m on the top floor. You just can’t find good neighbors like that anymore and I’m super thankful for the friends I’ve made so far while living here. I also must stress that this complex has ONLY improved since I’ve returned as this complex is now gated and secured as well as there being a restaurant attached finally :)! Now after what I’ve said so far, you would think I would immediately give 5 stars- my only only thing that made this 4 stars was the lack of the owner’s attention to the fact that it has been SIX days now since the fob system has been down. This has NOTHING to do with the staff- in these past days since residents haven’t had access to amenities or LAUNDRY, the staff has tried to open areas and laundry rooms for residents while we are patiently waiting for the owners of this complex to send someone out to fix this. I want to stress to the OWNERS that this feels incredibly unprofessional and that fob access should be seen as a true emergency. I am anticipating prompt and immediate action from them so this issue is resolved and residents can access not just amenities, but the laundry rooms!! PLEASE...

Its like being in a dorm without the convenience of living right on campus. The deal with paying the lease is that you pay half a year up front and the other half in January. That way you don't have to worry about making rent every month, its already taken care of. The complex is gated with an alarm and you have to have a key to get through the gate so that's nice but it is in a really bad side of town.

The rooms are small and if you go with the cheapest option of $360 a month, you have a roommate. They have a roommate matching system that you can go through to choose what kind of roommate that you want but I did not get the roommate that I had requested. They're suppose to give you their information so that you two could talk and get to know each other before living together. I was never given anything and only met my roommate on the day I was moving in. She was awful. She never took out the trash from her side of the room and since she was on the side closest to the door, I had to wade through the overflow of trash to get out the door every morning and again every time I came back. It was disgusting, I don't know how anyone can live like that. She also never washed her dishes and would let them pill up. In a studio apartment, it makes it hard to prep and cook dinner and wash my dishes when hers are all in the sink. She always says she would clean up but never does.

The building that the apartments are in is 4 floors high. There is an elevator which makes it easier when you have groceries and live on the 4th floor. The rooms are okay, and the hallways look like their from a horror film. They desperately need a makeover. They do have a lot of amenities though such as a reasonable sized swimming pool, hot tub, workout room, theater, and study room (although wifi in that room was horrible and the printers never worked). The office staff was friendly but sometimes a little too friendly. One would hug me every time he saw me so I avoided him whenever I could.

Every floor has a laundry room that is operated by this cards that you would load money onto and use as currency. The cards are $5 which is annoying since they don't give you the options of coins so you have to get the card. The laundry rooms consist of one washer and one dryer, priced relatively cheap but when you have to run all your clothes through the dryer 3 times before its dry, it becomes pricey. Yes, they say not to overload the dryers but I once did just a load of two towels and I still had to run them through the dryer twice. It's really annoying having to pay for something that does something halfway.

Commute to campus is easy since they have a shuttle that runs one way every half hour. The shuttle themselves are dreadful. The door to the van felt like it would go flying off if the shuttle took a turn a little too sharp. The bus is also not that great. Its not comfortable and old. They were getting a new bus when I was moving out. They said it would run on solar power and be made entirely of glass, and in Arizona, I don't need to tell you why that's a bad idea.

For the price that it is, its not bad but I wouldn't recommend it unless you had very little money and no other choice. If I had to do it all over again, I would just pay for a full room to myself but for that price, I can find a nicer place elsewhere. All in all, you get what...

I stayed at Sahara Apartments during the summer of 2015 while I was an REU student at NOAO. I cannot in good faith recommend staying at Sahara Apartments. Although many of the staff members were friendly and the location is close to downtown, my experience at Sahara Apartments was extremely negative. I will begin with the facilities. Most importantly, the rooms (I stayed in a two-person studio with a balcony) are very small. There is barely enough room to fit the two beds in the area, especially one wall needs enough space for the kitchen. To make matters worse, the roof leaked every time it rained (I was there during the monsoon season), and when my roommate and I asked a member of the staff to take a look at it, we were told that the landlord had known about the roof being a problem for a while. In addition, the pool area was nice, but not well maintained. Also, I was originally very excited that there was a gym on location, but the gym equipment was essentially unusable. The treadmill slipped when above walking speeds, the bike and elliptical seemed to be on the edge of falling apart, and the weight training equipment was almost nonexistent. Worst of all, bike theft is a regular problem, since tenants are encouraged to use a bike rack that is easy to cut into. To some degree, I was willing to tolerate all of the issues with the building, since the price of staying for a few months was unobjectionable. However, my interactions with the manager were unforgivable. After running into some issues with the payment system, I sent the manager a brief email asking for clarification about a charge on my invoice (which listed no explanation of charges) before I made the payment. Instead of a simple explanation that part of my original payment had not gone through the system properly (a problem that others had already had with the system), I received an email telling me to ‘do the math’ and chastising me for (and I quote) ‘copping an attitude’, being ‘indignant and belligerent’, and accusing me of thinking they were trying to cheat me. When I went to meet with him about the incident, the manager further patronized me when I asked him for an explanation of the problem with the system and noted that his hostile response seemed unprovoked. He told me that in asking to meet with him privately I was ‘acting like his daughter’ and refused to speak to me about any of my concerns regarding my continued use of the payment system or his treatment of his patrons. Although I will not speak for my peers, I am struck by the fact that most of the male students that I knew who interacted with the manager were treated with much more respect than the female students. I would hope that most tenants at Sahara Apartments have more positive experiences, but I wish that I had encountered an honest review or two before making the decision to stay there...