The Gantry — Attraction in Washington

I just moved in a week ago, so maybe things will get better, but in my experience so far, a 3-star rating is appropriate.

Pros: The apartment is in a great location with a lot of things to do. It has great amenities, including specifically purposed lounges, a lot of machines in its gym (although it would be better if it had more free weights and a hex bar), and a fabulous roof top, and the furnishings and hardware are all new and attractive.

The reasons for my 3-star review then are due to my nightmare of a move-in, the many little nuisances of the apartment design, and the lack of helpfulness from the leasing team.

First, the move-in. They only accept cashier's check. They informed me of this in advance, but forgot about it until 3:30pm on a Saturday, when all banks are closed. I called them to ask if I could pay in any other way so I could get my key and move in that day. They would not budge. Thankfully, I would have been able to extend a couple of days with my former apartment, but what if I had not had a place to stay? Greystar (the management company) was implicitly telling me "we don't care if you don't have a place to live". Very welcoming. I did end up moving in that day, but only after driving to a local bank in a Walmart in Landover Hills, Maryland, opening a checking account, and making a cash advance from my main bank into that account so they would be able to write a cashier's check for me. It was a very stressful day.

Second, there are a lot of design flaws around the apartment that add minor unpleasantness to my life, but add up. I will list a few of them. The hall closet has wire shelves that are great for storing things, but make it difficult to hang any coats. In the bathroom, there is no hand towel rack and the shower towel rod is positioned directly behind the shower door. In the bedroom, the sliding door is frosted, with no curtains, so that light comes in in the morning. In the kitchen, I cannot rearrange the shelves in the refrigerator because one of the doors does not come out far enough to remove and reinstall them. The placement of the stove/oven makes it so that there are two narrow sets of cabinets on either side that you can barely fit anything into--it would have been better to just have installed it a little to the left or right so that there would be a functional set of cabinets where one could actually store a lot of stuff. The sink is huge, which is great if you need to do a lot of dishes, but is mostly annoying, as it causes me to use more dish soap, and the water pressure from the kitchen faucet is weak, which makes it take longer to fill up the sink or refill my water tank. Finally, I must lift the bottom rack of the dishwasher when pulling it out or its wheels will get stuck in a gap between the tracks inside the dishwasher and the inside of the door (where it sits when you pull it out).

There are also irritating design aspects to the building. For one, the building is huge and to get from the East Tower (where I live) to the West Tower, you have to use about 3 different stair sets in the process and walk down a long, undecorated corridor that is reminiscent of the back hallways of 1990s mall. In addition to having to take multiple stair sets to get down to the ground floor, there is no way to open the doors to the stair set for the East Tower from the outside. It is a very pro-elevator facility, which is unfortunate for getting one’s steps in.

Lastly, my experiences with leasing have left something to be desired. When moving in, my leasing agent wrote the wrong address on my welcome letter and, even more confusingly, quoted a total for my move-in amount that was over $1,000 more than I actually had to pay. I had to call to get one of the other leasing agents to amend it. Also, when I went to ask the leasing office about having maintenance fix some of the nuisances I listed above, they treated me like I was the weird one and were completely unhelpful.

I wish I hadn't felt the need to give this review, but I felt it was eye-opening enough to share with...

Don't be fooled by the inflated rating The Gantry has due to a ploy they ran on residents. Any review that mentions employees by name and has 5 stars was a tactic the leasing office used to artificially raise their ratings. See more below and in other comments from residents

I've lived at The Gantry since June 2022. Lured in and remain because of the beautiful amenities, and community I’ve built, but the analogy among many of us here is that The Gantry is like a 5-star hotel that is run like a Motel 6. The leasing office reels you in via a tour of the space and a script of benefits, many of which are partial truths or no longer in place. And new leases are clearly the office's top priority, beyond that once a resident, you find that management is totally incompetent and unresponsive. They admit that they can't respond to emails timely and that in person meetings are best for quick resolution, but then will reschedule the meetings, and oftentimes either arrive late or have to leave early if not both. We get the sense that property management only wants to do the fun parts of the job such as selling living here and organizing activities but doesn't want or is incapable of the hard work of putting structures in place to make actually living here go smoothly. I've lived in multiple luxury apartments around the city and in other places and the management here is the worst. Basic services are completely lacking such as the management of a guest list, an organized system for receiving food deliveries and the security of the garage. We have no idea how many vehicle thefts, and break ins there have been to our garage which is totally compromised due to gates that are always out of service and never quickly resolved. Security "courtesy officers" as the term management uses to market their role, is useless. They have been told their job is to overpolice resident conduct rather than be a service to us. The consistent aforementioned garage breaches as an example. Heavily monitoring pool access and reservations for residents as another. There have also been multiple reports to management of disrespectful interactions between the chief of security and residents and management has refused to make a change.

There are some positives here, you'll notice the tactic of asking residents to provide 5-star reviews and mentioning employees by name has resulted in many complementary reviews of our concierge staff. Oliver and Miracle are great at what they've been asked/trained to do. But that tactic - we literally received an email about this campaign to recognize employees by leaving a 5-star review and listing employees by name, has also artificially raised the overall Google rating. Further, there was a question at one point as to whether they were deleting unfavorable reviews. The building also must have got lucky in who owns the maintenance and cleaning contracts as they are also both excellent and don't require oversight from the office. So bottom line, beautiful building but frustratingly poorly managed to the point where you may not feel like you're getting your money's worth.

Update 6/24: As a case in point of the lack of security, the unresponsiveness and incompetence referenced above and more. Last week a resident was assaulted by a former Gantry employee while off the clock. This employee had been banned by the building but was able to still breach the property multiple times. Those issues aside, management was also told that the residents blood has not been cleaned up yet, and if it must remain for some reason, no sign or blockade closing it off...So as of this morning, 5 days later, the blood stains are still all over the stairwell where the assault happened. See...

While my review will echo many of the sentiments shared by other residents, I've decided it is still worth writing as I wish there were more honest reviews before I decided to live here. Honestly, if you're considering living at the Gantry and value peace, kindness and safety, please reconsider. Yes, it looks beautiful, but the quality of the experience that they offer, doesn't match.

The reviews regarding noise are true, as well as the snarky concierge and security (most of them, not all) but those are actually the least of your worries at the Gantry. While a resident, some of the worst experiences I had were the safety concerns, for example, when someone's laptop was stolen from their apartment, the constant notices of car thefts from the garage, the unsavory people that surround the building, as well as the lack of fire alarms during fire drills and an actual fire that occured. There was also a fight between a resident and a guest in the lobby that left me trapped in the package room, seeking refuge. The police were even called; not quite the experience you want to have, especially for what they charge for rent!

In my particular unit there was also a recurring sewage issue that wasn't completely resolved until I actually started to research resolutions, as maintenence who, while nice and responsive same day, would never actually fix the issue. It took months to fix until I literally had to tell them what to do and insist that they do it!

All mentions regarding the lack of responsiveness from management are also true. My first experience dealing with it was after requesting more information regarding extremely loud construction occuring on my floor during work hours; we were never given any notifications regarding a start date/end date and after inquiring multiple times, I received no information. My most recent example is following my departure, I am still awaiting a response regarding an overcharge from Conservice that significantly reduced my security deposit return!

Again, don't be fooled by the pretty amenities, the issues at the building simply...