Eagle View Lofts — Local services in Des Moines

UPDATE: 3 months after moving out, still untangling broken promises and debt collection threats over a small balance THAT WAS PAID IN FULL

Warning to Prospective Residents Review covers my experience from August 2023 - February 2024

Deeply troubled property that fails its residents on fundamental levels.

Security? A joke. The "secure access" building frequently sits wide open due to malfunctioning doors and propped entries. Management (Indigo Living/Hubbell Properties) has shown no urgency in addressing this basic safety concern.

The property's pet-friendly policy has devolved into chaos. The building allows all dog breeds—including those commonly classified as dangerous—without enforcing any standards for training or behavior. This policy is routinely exploited by owners of powerful breeds who fail to properly train or control their animals. Uncollected waste litters the grounds, and unleashed dogs roam freely, creating a legitimate safety hazard for smaller pets and children. Multiple reports have been ignored.

Living conditions border on the absurd. The building's poor sound insulation means you'll share every moment of your neighbors' private lives—from conversations to bathroom visits. Hope you enjoy the cold, too—winter air flows freely through the inadequate thermal insulation, turning your expensive apartment into an icebox during Iowa winters. It's less "luxury living" and more "involuntary communal housing in a refrigerator."

The property grounds are disgraceful. Trash accumulates everywhere with no regular cleanup in sight. Even when the lawn maintenance crew arrives, they simply mow over the litter—shredding it into smaller pieces that scatter further across the property. This negligence creates not only an eyesore but a genuine health hazard that perfectly symbolizes management's approach to the entire property.

Be prepared for financial surprises. The advertised rent is merely the starting point in a labyrinth of hidden charges buried deep within the lease agreement. Expect to pay extra fees for parking in the regular lot, double fees for covered parking, plus various administrative and service charges that mysteriously appear on your monthly statement. This deceptive pricing strategy feels deliberately designed to mislead prospective tenants about the true cost of living here.

What truly defines this property, however, is the stunning incompetence of its management team. During my tenancy, I've documented:

Chronic absenteeism from the property Openly hostile responses to requests Deliberate dismissal of documented safety concerns Unprofessional conduct including mockery of resident complaints Pattern of deflection and denial in response to valid issues

The sole bright spot in this dysfunctional operation is the maintenance team. Their professionalism, courtesy, and genuine dedication to helping residents stands in stark contrast to management's failings. They demonstrate daily what proper property management could look like—it's unfortunate they aren't running the entire operation.

The tragedy is the wasted potential. The location is unmatched—overlooking downtown, Principal Park's fireworks, and the upcoming whitewater park. Instead of capitalizing on these assets, management has created an environment so toxic that long-term residents are fleeing.

To prospective tenants: The view is spectacular, but it comes at the cost of your safety, peace of mind, and dignity. Your concerns will be met with derision, your complaints with silence. The responsible choice is to look elsewhere.

To Indigo Living/Hubbell Properties: While it appears as if the property now has new managers, the systemic issues described above stem from company policies and priorities. Rotating staff won't fix fundamental problems. Your residents deserve better than cosmetic changes—they need genuine reform in how this property is managed. The growing collection of negative reviews and departing tenants should serve as a wake-up call to leadership at all levels.

1/5 stars - look elsewhere! You've...

I lived here for a little over 2 years, and overall it was fine, but not outstanding. I’ll start with the positives: I loved the location - close to downtown without being directly downtown, the view of the river and the eagles was awesome, and you can hop on the walking/biking trails right outside. The in-unit laundry was a big reason I chose this place over my other options, and that was really nice to have. I never had any issues with my appliances while living there since they were all relatively new. On the west side of the building, where my unit was, there’s very little traffic noise. I was in the smallest floorplan so there wasn’t a ton of storage besides kitchen cabinets, but I made it work. Last winter (2022-23) the parking lot was cleared of snow and the sidewalks were salted in a timely manner, which was great.

For the most part the neighbors are quiet in the hallways, but the walls are very thin and it’s easy to hear your direct neighbors’ conversations, music, TVs, etc. Getting stuck with neighbors who played loud music at any hour of the day was one of the worst parts about living there. Also, like many other reviews have said, the hallways smell like marijuana and cigarette smoke more often than not, which easily wafts into the individual units. I often had to run fans, air filters, and crack the window open (even in the middle of winter) to get the smoke smell to lessen.

I had issues with the management company that bought the building in May 2022 and the new property manager that came along with that. Since they took over, building and grounds maintenance has gone downhill. When I moved out in July 2023, the trash room fob scanner had been broken from the inside since March 2023. There was a risk of getting locked in the trash room, and all they did was put a sign up with the emergency maintenance number in case you got stuck; there was no effort to fix it from what I could tell. Same thing when one of the exterior door scanners broke; it took them a very long time to do anything about it, and their solution was to give all residents a hard key to unlock that specific door, rather than fix the scanner that worked with our existing fobs. And the outside call box hasn’t worked in probably a year and a half. They never had the outside of the windows cleaned like the previous property manager, so the windows are covered in dried rainwater and dust, with no way for residents to clean their windows themselves.

The people at the leasing office often come across as lacking internal communication and record keeping. When it came time for my lease renewal, I selected the option I wanted (month-to-month) in the portal and thought that was it. Then they proceeded to call me 2 more times over the following months asking what my plan was, and I told them each time. It’s like they weren’t recording things or communicating to each other. They eventually told me month-to-month wasn't an option with income restricted rent, even though that option was offered to me in the portal; that was its own ordeal. Additionally, in my last month of living there, the system tried automatically charging me for utilities, even though I was on income restriction and utilities weren’t part of my lease agreement. I had to call multiple times to ask them to remove those charges. Darryl was the most helpful person in the leasing office and I do appreciate his assistance; anyone else I talked to just seemed to be sort of a yes-man on the phone and didn’t actually resolve any of the things I...

My friend and I got an Airbnb from a guy who posted his place in these apartments. The guy doesn't even live here. He only uses it for Airbnb and he actually lives in a different state completely. The issues we had were primarily parking. This complex partners with crow tow towing and they have a contract which means they must have some kind of compensation deal or referral package or something, because the horror stories we experienced and then heard from this place. Well, we were here with our parking pass on the dash and within an hour my car got towed. They toted an hour before they closed. so by the time I noticed and I called the towing company they said it was already too late to pick up my car and I'd have to come in the next day. Well, we started asking around the neighboring complexes to try to find a ride and we actually heard multiple people say that one croto has pending litigations and two this stuff happens at this apartment complex all the time. It's a predatory towing company that they work with and now I was charged $200 just to get my car back. I went and I saw the parking pass was in my dash. It had slid down a little bit. But nonetheless it's a little paper pass. Of course it's going to slide down sometimes. It's very small and pretty much the apartment works with the towing company and the tow company works with the apartment. Not to mention they're letting people Airbnb or if they're not well then he's doing it illegally. We were in room 208 in apartment number 712 our Airbnb guy was Michael and he also didn't care about the washer and dryer leaking or the apartment smelled smelling like mold or the mold we found in the bathroom. He didn't care about any of it just said he was sorry that we felt that way. The last thing worth worth mentioning too is when we got here there was a pest sign on the door saying that they had done some pest cleaning or were doing some pest cleaning and it was dated for July 17th and today is August 4th so apparently no one's even been here for over 2 weeks and they just have this these pest signs sitting here. So I don't know what Des Moines has going on but from being out of state and coming here, this is probably the worst out-of-state experience you've ever had and we probably will be avoiding Iowa and Des Moines all together. There's 49 other states. I guess Iowa...