The Flats at Professional Arts Building — Local services in Baltimore

Moved to Baltimore, chose The Flats as home for a year. I lived in a 1BR (non-renovated) apartment and it was very spacious for the rent at the time. My apartment was carpeted and had 8 windows so tons of natural light. The trash chute and mail drop-off chute are located on each floor for convenience. There is a 24-hour gym in the basement and a cafe on the first floor that grants a 10% discount to residents. Packages are sometimes dropped off in the lockers and other times on the floor in mail room but never had an issue with missing packages. Germar the leasing agent would sometimes deliver to your apartment if you were home - he was fantastic. Neighbors seem to be a mix of young professionals, college students, and older adults. Very quiet - no issues with noise or rowdy neighbors. Safe and secure building with key fob entry and cameras in lobby. There is no parking offered at The Flats, but you can buy an annual street parking permit for Mount Vernon or pay for monthly parking at the various lots & garages nearby.

Fortunately never had issues with mice or bugs. There is a cleaning crew that cleans the lobby and vacuums the halls on each floor, so appearances are well maintained. When I moved in, the apartment was in great condition - freshly painted walls and shampooed carpet. Kitchen and laundry appliances have all worked wonderfully and no issues. Windows were pretty leaky however, making a loud whistling sound when it was windy out, on top of not keeping the AC & heat in, so be sure to check the windows as the PAB was built in 1927. There was a small list of minor things that needed to be addressed upon move-in but they were all resolved quickly in a single maintenance visit. Speaking of maintenance, I have nothing but great things to say about Bjorn the maintenance supervisor. He is fantastic and very easy to get in touch with.

The Flats is located in Mount Vernon, so it is pretty urban/dense (not as much as Downtown towards the harbor) but there is the park with the Washington Monument nearby and some nice tree-lined streets. It was convenient to be able to walk to Eddie’s Supermarket, CVS, coffee shops, UPS/FedEx, and the Mount Vernon Marketplace. Easy access to Penn Station, 95, and 83. I do recommend the Citizen app to be aware of any occurrences in the area.

4 out of 5 star experience living at The Flats. Good place to live if the Mount Vernon area is what you are specifically looking for + don’t have a car. Left due to a steep (12%) rent increase after one year of residency and a want to leave the city for some greenery. At the time of this review, Barkan was the property management company...

I've been living here for 4.5 years. It used to be a good place, but things have gotten really bad in the past year. I'm sharing three photos of tenants posting stuff in the office area and elevator area because the management team is extremely difficult to reach. These pics were taken on Oct 18, Oct 23, and Nov 5 in 2023. I don’t know who posted them. I didn’t personally write anything shown in these photos.

But you can tell how terrible the management is in this building.

Our unit was attacked by some unknown person who broke our door locks twice and wrecked our ring camera, which were nightmares. The apartment's response was very sloppy and careless even we had the police reports (the police suggested us to move out).

Because of their attitude and bad reputation (we didn’t know how long they would ask us to wait. It could be months according to their previous sloppy performance in almost everything), we had to move to another apartment for the sake of our own safety.

Ironically, they informed us that they finished the documentation for us and we could change our unit only after we told them we physically moved out and would like to terminate the lease.

The managers of the Barkan management company didn't seem to care much. They didn't even read our email properly, and there was no apology for our bad living experience. All they focused on in their response was that we’d be hit with a two-month buyout fee.

We have some nice neighbors who've been very supportive. Not sure how long they'll stick around, but I wish...

This management team is the worst, seriously! It's like they're invisible most of the time. And when you do manage to find them, all they do is brush off your complaints or promise to tell their bosses, but nothing happens. If you try to push them, be ready for a months-long battle – or you might just give up first.

Packages disappear all the time, and they won't even put a camera in the mailbox room or bother calling the police.

Rats and mice are having a party in the hallways.

The front and back doors have been under repaired for months and still can’t function properly. There were many times you just saw it unlocked, even when there was a murder two blocks away! At one point, they couldn't figure out the key fobs, so they slapped the access code on the front door for everyone to see. Like, seriously?

Utility fees are off the charts compared to other places nearby. I don't know if everyone in this building is taking hour-long showers, but the fees keep going up even though people are moving out from this place.

Windows in the unit are antiquated, some won't even open. They say they can't fix them. Three elevators, but only one is on the job. The elevator to the basement doesn’t work for...