The Heron Downtown — Local services in Baton Rouge

After living in the Heron Downtown for more than five years, I am sad to report that the quality of this building has declined significantly in recent years. If you are a renter who does not want to lose thousands of dollars in rent increases and ridiculous fees, you would be wiser to spend your money at one of the other luxury buildings in the downtown.

When we first moved in to the Heron in 2020, we were very happy with the building's location, amenities, and cleanliness. Andrea at the front desk was kind and helpful. Unfortunately, things have taken a negative turn in recent years. Maintenance has declined, with common areas becoming dirty and unpleasant. Elevators, gym equipment, garage doors, and more are often broken for months without remedy. Similarly, when maintenance problems arise inside of apartments, tenants are often treated like nuisances for making basic requests.

Once Andrea left, tenant customer service has become increasingly weak. It's very difficult, often impossible, to get someone on the phone, and staff are often unhelpful, impolite, and unclear when problems arise.

Perhaps the building's greatest weakness is that its floors and ceilings are incredibly thin, which leads to miserable, sleepless nights and issues with neighbors. Further, the landlords worsen this issue by making it clear that they have no interest in helping these issues to be resolved in a peaceful manner. One staff member actually suggested that I call the police on a noisy child living above me instead of offering more helpful or productive solutions.

In addition to annual rent increases, the building also began charging $75 per hour to rent common areas out of the blue and without warning and ignored tenant complaints about this unexpected change. The ability to host friends and family in the common areas of the building was a key amenity for us, and having it taken away felt like a slap in the face, especially considering the frequent rent increases.

But the final straw for me has been the process of moving out of the Heron. After five years of loyal tenancy, putting up with rent increases despite declining cleanliness and service, the staff has now made this process as miserable as possible. We asked for a few weeks of flexibility on our move-out date, as we were relocating for work, and we were refused. Now, the landlords are attempting to charge us hundreds of dollars in confusing and exorbitant move-out fees, and when we call to ask for more information, the answers we receive are opaque and borderline rude. Different employees give us contradictory information and promise to follow up, then fail to do so. What kind of a business repays loyal, clean, long-time renters with this sort of treatment? The Heron does. Overall, they provide terrible customer service that has cost us hours of our lives and hundreds of dollars.

This review is just scratching the surface of the number of unpleasant experiences we had as tenants of the Heron. Again, as multiple new luxury apartment buildings have sprung up in the downtown Baton Rouge area, I would advise anyone in this price point to look for a building that is better maintained, provides kinder tenant customer service, and has thick enough floors and ceilings that you're able to sleep...

If I could give zero stars I would. Initially, the leasing agent Chelsea seemed nice and was communicating mostly via text over the course of some days which went into weeks and then suddenly she stopped responding. I even called the office numerous times no answer. When I tried to reach out many times about the status of my daughter's application, she kept saying she didn't know , she was working at another office and I could call the manager she was there, and other lies I feel because the leasing manager never answered. Then one day my daughter texts Chelsea and she told her their system was down this is whay happens when they do some type of end of the month maintenance with their system. As soon as its done she would call, she never called. Its much more. Nevertheless, My daughter is a college student and paid $135. $65 application fee and $75 admin fee and lost it all in which she could have put towards her finances for college. Suddenly I receive a call from a person who claims to be the call center for the Heron and she said the leasing manager would contact me to explain what the denial email was about. That never happened, no one ever called me. On today, I receive an email stating that my daughter each owe $75. For what????? She's already paid $135. I've called numerous times and no one has answered. Texted Chelsea after the fact several times, no more response. This is AWFUL and UNFAIR and UNPROFESSIONAL. I would not recommend this place because you just don't do busness like this! If the HERON Downtown leasing manager and leasing agent Chelsea have any decency, they would contacted whomever it is to refund my daughter her monies of $135 and recall those emails about us owing another $150 to a place we never even visited. As a concerned parent, I was simply trying to secure housing for my daughter during her senior year of college, and this experience has been a tremendous source of stress. I definitely would not recommend The Heron...

I did enjoy living there 3 years ago. I stayed in one of the poolside 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms which was enjoyable. However, I would definitely steer clear of this place. After paying over $2000/mo in rent for a year, they made some random charge of $164 (after i moved out) without ever attempting to call me to have it paid. I've been calling to find out what it is and how to pay it. They sent it to collections and now it's affecting my credit score. Incredibly unprofessional. Their main phone number from google is now disconnected, and the number from their website hangs up before it rings. I've called countless times during normal work hours for weeks, and no one has ever answered the phone once. I actually did enjoy living there, but if they are going to mess with your credit score that is a huge deal breaker; they could be potentially costing me tens of thousands of dollars via my artificially inflated mortgage interest on my future home. All for a random $164 charge that appeared out of no where after I moved out. I tried logging in with my old username to pay it, but it is no longer valid. They didn't even send me a bill. I found out when went to get a mortgage loan pre-approval.

Edit: I was able to get in contact with the manager, Skyy, who was very helpful and professional in resolving this matter for me. It turns out the charge was a prorated rent that was valid that was mailed to me (I did not receive). I wish they would have called my phone to check before sending to a creditor, but I do consider mailing a valid attempt. I was able to contact the debt collector (who also never called me) to get resolved. I’m changing my review to a 5 star because I don’t think this was either party’s fault, and once I was able to get in touch with someone, it was very easy to resolve. As I said before, I really did enjoy living there and never had an issue with...