Park Lane Seaport — Local services in Boston

I don’t write many reviews but I rented site un-seen and wish I’d known these things before I made the leap of faith.

wrote about the noise MONTHS ago and guess what not even 8am right now and it is STILL going on - woken up to noise as if someone is working in my bedroom like I should sleep with a hard hat on. What a miserable place to live.

What a delight to be reminded of my old days in the Army being rattled awake at 7am (!) day in and day out groggily thinking I’m back at the machine gun range as the din of jackhammer battles roars anew with 65+ decibel nonstop noise reverberating through my $4,000 a month apartment. At least it didn’t cost that much to sleep in a Stryker…

Noise, noise, noise, that’s the theme of this place. This is a wonderful place to live if you are fine with never knowing a moments peace free from one sound or another. I’ve lived here for some time paying nearly $4000 in rent (!) to live above three simultaneous construction projects. First they started early morning jackhammering for the garage project, then they sold the restaurant space on the ground level and started morning jackhammering for that and blocking off much of the sidewalk, then to top it off they began a “renovation” of the lobby due to a water leak that had occurred in the space.

In addition to the joys of living above hard hat zones, when you think you can finally get peace - instead day after day you’ll hear your heavy footed neighbors run laps about their apartments in high heels and maybe toss bowling balls down their hallways(?) or dropping weights every two minutes.

You’ll be privy to every conversation from out in the hall due to massive gaps (at least an inch like you’d have on your bedroom not the front door) between door and floor and the neighbor’s dog even several doors down the hall incessantly barking - again courtesy of the interior door style gap to the hallway. If you’re curious about your neighbor’s personal lives you can stand by their door as of course the sound travels both ways between hall and personal space.

My very first impression after a long and tiresome trip from out of state to finally move into my new home was utterly unimpressive. My expensive new apartment which I rented site unseen featured stainless steel appliances with water and grime stains on it, dusty and scratched floors, crumbling baseboards, chipped porcelain in the tub, loose toilet tank cover on a fixture that is strangely about 2 degrees off plane and even before the construction commenced a loud droning noise from the hvac system.

For the massive rent rate there are zero amenities at this place, there is an ok gym but that is at the main building not 225 and a pool table and such.

The roof decks exist … the views are ok … there are loose pavers and acceptable but underwhelming furniture - the flowers in the summer and spring are nice but the grill they have takes forever to heat to temperature.

The apartment is in a good location, and in Boston… and that’s why they can and do take advantage of you with rent - they know the Boston market is crazy and the seaport is beyond excessively expensive so they happily charge “luxury” rates for an apartment that does not in any way strike one as “luxurious.”

Paying nearly four grand a month for a one bedroom 900ish sqft apartment of this condition is nuts it should be half that at most but again the market dictates - do yourself a favor and move to a nicer, newer building or just live outside the city if possible. If this were a $2000 apartment it would be fine (as expected) but at $4/5k its flaws are unforgivable.

A review from the past featured someone fawning over the attention to detail noted by a new arrival - I found that tremendously ironic - I’m not sure if that was written to win a toaster (they do “write a review contests”) or if people have much lower standards and expectations than me coming from a much more affordable state to a home billed as luxury living.

In all - unless there’s no other option do yourself a favor and look elsewhere you’ll be...

Park Lane Seaport is located in a gorgeous neighborhood and this is the biggest advantage of this building, hence getting higher than 1 or 2 stars. However, it comes with various problems. Given how high the rents are, one would expect a way better quality of life with much less problems in this building but unfortunately it's not true. It is relatively an old building (especially compared to others in the area) and this poses certain maintenance problems. While the frequency of the problems is already annoying, the speed of responding to the maintenance problems is also very slow. You may have to wait weeks to solve a very small problem and it's very annoying while you're paying 3K+ rent. Staff in the maintenance team are friendly and talented but they are low in number and management fails to hire more people to the maintenance team for a more quick response to problems. These problems include both the ones in your apartment and also general problems in the building affecting everyone. One example that we experienced few months ago was that they had water shutdown and for an entire week we had to use boiling water from all the faucets in the apartment. I have been here more than a year now and the loud noise from the garage project has been another annoying and lasting problem since I moved in, with no estimation on when it ends. Another problem is that despite being a residential building, 225 Northern Ave building's entry is not private. Parking garage underneath the building is operated by another company and people who use the garage use the same entry with residents. That ends up literally anyone who wants to enter the building being able to enter without a question. This makes the building less private and less safe. One advantage of this place is having concierge service for 24h a day but some of the staff working at concierge often disappear for quite looong times and if you need something you might need to wait for longer than 30min without knowing when to get service. This also makes you open the locked doors to strangers who wanna use the parking garage and they can be aggressive waiting outside for too long. This also has been a quite weird experience to me to deal with aggressive strangers as if it's my job to open the doors for them. Other than that, most people at concierge are friendly and kind, but there are a few who can be quite rude. Another disadvantage of this place is the number of elevators and how busy it can get especially in rush hours. Last but not least, Park Lane Seaport has a gorgeous roof deck in each of their buildings and it's been a true joy enjoying them looking at the ocean and spending great time there. However, some residents can be very disrespectful to others, having big parties, inviting way too many people even though they should have limited number of guests based on the lease/apt rules, being loud, and they are smoking in shared places despite it's strictly forbidden in the building and it's stated in the lease. Problem with the management is that there is no strict policy against these residents and all these residents easily get away with their rude behaviors and forbidden actions. If the management takes very easy actions against these problems and have more strict policies against residents who don't follow the rules and become annoying to others, and if the maintenance team is expanded, I think Park Lane Seaport can be a...

My fiancee and I had a great experience at Park Lane.

Positives: -Great responsive staff. Maintenance issues were universally resolved within 24 hours during my year and a half at Park Lane. Of particular note was the high-quality leasing office, which was always quick to work with us on any concerns we had, including but not limited to a move to a new unit 3/4 of the way through our first lease and an early termination halfway through our second lease. -The apartment was in like-new shape when we moved into both of the units we lived in - it was clear they take pride in refreshing every unit between moves. -Apartment layouts are thoughtfully done, as you can see from the floor designs on the website. We were in a Renoir apartment and loved how well every square foot was put to use. -Amenities like the roof decks and gym were great features. Both the two Peloton bikes and the free fitness classes were highlights of the gym. -Community events like wine tastings, yoga classes, and a Halloween party were a lot of fun to be a part of. -Lobby features like a seltzer machine, the Amazon locker, and 24-hour concierge were convenient and useful. -Location right next to the Silver Line Way stop couldn't be more convenient for Financial District workers - five minute ride to South Station in the winter, and a wonderful 20-minute walk by the water in the summer.

I really don't have any negatives to share. The concerts in the summer were audible (though not particularly loud) with the windows closed in our Northern Ave-facing apartment, but we also got to enjoy free concerts from the privacy of our home if we opened the window or went up to the roof deck. No concerts went past 11 p.m. during the duration of our time at Park Lane. For what it's worth, I do not think this noise would be a problem on the other side of the building - we were directly facing the venue - but it's something to be aware of when considering the building.

Park Lane is not the newest or fanciest building in Seaport, but it's also priced accordingly, and as people who don't need a dog yoga studio or an aromatherapy zen garden as a building feature, we were happy to carry these cost savings into actually going out and enjoying the many awesome restaurants and activities that the Seaport has to offer.

For these many reasons, we were extremely pleased with our experience at Park Lane. We only left because of some life changes that took us out of the Seaport entirely - we would still be at Park Lane if we were living in Boston, and if we return to Seaport, we will look into living...