The Drake on Summit Apartments — Local services in Fort Worth

Please do your due diligence and read the other reviews. I’m inclined to believe that the positive reviews that are on here are coached, and/or incentivized. If I could give half star ratings, I would give just a half of a star for this property, and that’s only due to the positive interactions that I have had with Abby and Rikki (when she was still there) in the lease office. Unfortunately, that is where the pros end for this property, and in my humble opinion, the property took a turn for the worse upon Rikki’s departure. If you want to live in the ghetto and pay luxury rent prices, congratulations, you have found the perfect place to seek residence. The property is never clean and there is always trash everywhere. Despite multiple emails from management, you would think that they would at least walk the property, but it’s as if management couldn’t care less. There is no accountability and when you complain, they say they will do something or “roll back cameras and fine residents who violate” but it never happens and trash continuously piles up. Oh and might I add, they will fine the entire property a “bulk trash removal fee” for other people not disposing their trash properly. So I guess it is you, the residents’, responsibility to tell other residents what to do and how to do it regarding trash. Oh and another thing, if you enjoy smelling weed throughout the day and in the hallways, well, you’ll love it here. I’ve lost count on how many times I have had to smell weed in the halls, the parking garage, and sometimes even in our unit. It’s very displeasing.

Second, the parking is a nightmare. If you want to get a real life experience of final destination, well, you have found the perfect place to get that experience. People drive in the parking garage like they are running from the cops. Oh and the sharp corners, and narrow lane to drive in does not help. You quite literally nearly rub against another parked car or car driving by because the lanes are just so narrow. The poles in the middle of the parking spots also do not help, so, if you want to get your car dented and scraped, the parking spots will assist with that perfectly. And if you pay for a reserved space, well good luck with actually having access to it when you want. People disregard the reserved parking signs all the time, and park wherever they feel like parking. The leasing office will tell you “oh call the towing company and have them towed”. Well it should not be the resident’s responsibility to call a towing company to have a vehicle in violation towed, for a spot that you pay the property to rent.

As the other reviews say, the gates are always broken and most times, there is no urgency to fix them. Speaking of gates and security, this property lists itself as having controlled access. Controlled access by definition means that only authorized individuals can enter or access specific areas or resources. It’s pretty hard to control the access when the doors never fully close completely, or lock. Most of the time, the doors are left open, and not because someone propped it open, but because it fails to close completely. When they do close completely, anyone could quite literally pull on the door firmly, and it opens. So in my opinion, that isn’t controlled access. So if security is something that is not important to you, most def you’ve hit the jackpot here.

So, save your self time, regret, money, and an unnecessary headache and go elsewhere to live. This place does not live up to what they describe it to be. Instead of ensuring that residents are cared for and that the property is taken care of, they are too busy trying to find the next food truck to host or plan the next resident event. The things that you are shown on your tour, is not what it is in reality. It is almost as if they ensure that the areas that will be toured look the part, but couldn’t care less about the rest of the property. You’d probably have a better experience living a property marketed as non-luxury, as opposed to...

October ‘23 update: I finally received my deposit check from the Drake (almost two months after moving out), and they took out almost half the initial deposit for…WATER DAMAGE. You can’t make this up. My apartment floods, they do nothing about it, then I’m charged for damages. The Drake is absolute scum and I will dissuade anyone from even thinking about moving here.

This is the most disappointing and poorly-managed property I’ve ever experienced as a tenant. The amenities are nice and well-kept, and the floor plans, while fairly standard, are acceptable. However, I’ve had multiple issues as a tenant, including one major issue, that was ignored and mishandled so badly that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. See story below, but I would NOT recommend renting from this property unless they significantly change their style of management.

Story: I had been renting an apartment on the ground floor of the building for over a year with few issues. Communication has never been great, but it hasn’t been a big deal to this point. Over Christmas 2022, I was out of my home visiting family for a few days when I get a message from a neighbor that my lights are on and my living room rug is draped over the fence outside. Come to find out, a pipe had burst in the ceiling of my unit, flooding the entire thing, and the maintenance crew took it upon themselves to go into my unit and move my furniture, etc. out of the way of the water. Honestly I’m very appreciative of that. However, it turns out they left all doors unlocked, lights on, and nobody bothered to contact me about it. There’s no way to tell how long my home was under water, all doors unlocked, before my neighbor let me know. With a door leading to the street level, my belongings could’ve very easily been stolen. Not to mention, you’d think I would be notified when my apartment floods. Even still, this was not the worst part. In the months that followed, my apartment flooded 3 more times from the same pipe issue. I had been pleading with management to do something about it the entire time, and they ignored every email and call I made. They also seemed to be absent any time I tried to visit the office to discuss the issue. I finally managed to drag a passing maintenance crew into my unit after seeing him outside, and he assured me it was fine. Almost comically, the pipe flooded again THAT DAY. When the issue was finally fixed after this laughable amount of time and damage to personal property, the maintenance crew left a hole the size of a football in the drywall near my ceiling, saying it’s not their job to fix it. This hole remained for about 4 months while I was ignored further about fixing it. Finally, a new property manager was hired and she responded to my emails. She was polite, and the hole was fixed, but then as I asked for some kind of restitution in the form of rent credit or something, anything at all, I was told it couldn’t happen and that I would need to file a police report or insurance claim if I wanted any kind of compensation for the damage that was caused to my belongings due to the management team’s incompetence. All in all, I’m giving the Drake 2 stars because it’s a nice building with nice amenities, but those are fairly easy to find these days. If you can avoid living here and dealing with the astoundingly incompetent management and property ownership, I would advise doing so.

I expect at some point there will be a response to this review posted by the management team in which they “apologize for my experience” (I work in marketing and know how this works), but I can assure you they have ignored my problems long enough that this isn’t true....

I moved into the Alexan (now the Drake) right after they were built, in the first year of operation. The apartments are very nice and offer excellent views. However, the new owners, rocketing rents, and an ever-increasing number of problems are making us think about moving.

Below are my Pros and Cons, listed by order of importance.

Pros -Updated Apartments (appliances, high ceilings)

-Gorgeous western views overlooking trinity trails/park if you’re in the right place in the west building

-Fantastic location to access downtown Fort Worth

-Robust Amenities (pool, gym, amazon lockers)

-Responsive Maintenance

-Highly Automated (pay rent, submit work orders, register vehicles)

-Electronic doors unlock using a fob rather than physical key (could also be a con if you prefer keys)

-Strict Parking Policy (See ‘Cons’ for other side) – All residents (and visitors) must register online. Visitors must register EVERY 24 hours. This aims to ensure only residents and guests are parking on property

Cons

-Busboom Group – The new owners cut costs wherever possible, and the residents can feel it. Some items feel like you’re being nickel & dimed, for example to use the refrigerator, you must install a water filter every few months. That water filter, which was provided by Alexan (former owners), is something you must go out and buy yourself under the Drake. The filters are not expensive, it’s more about the difference in feel between the new and old owners. This feeling pervades every encounter with them.

-Expensive – I pay just over $2 grand per month for a 2 bedroom

-The fire alarm – Others have reviewed the fire alarm problems in depth, so I won’t cover it here. The fire alarm has been a problem every year in the winter. It’s an issue that they can’t seem to fix, and it’s a huge problem.

-Front office – Inadequately staffed. They are overworked and miss things (for example I was given a new FOB but never updated in the system, so I lost access to the apartments). It’s too common to go by the office and it be empty/locked.

-Strict Parking Policy – My personal experience here - I received new license plates for my car and forgot to update the online system with my new plate number (my mistake). 4 months went by, and I walked outside to find a boot on my car.

It was $125 and 3 hours of headache to get the boot off. No warning was given, just a boot. The fact that it took 4 months for this to happen means they aren’t enforcing the parking policy with any regularity, which was the point of them recruiting Capital Towing to enforce the policy. Capital Towing simply comes through when they want to print some money. There is no incentive for Capital towing to give a warning since they’re getting paid for every car they boot. I imagine we would be astounded at the number of legit residents who get booted versus the illegal parkers this policy is meant to deter.

-Tight garage spaces; MANY cars with body damage due to sharp right turn into the garage upon entering

-Only high traffic common areas (Gym, Skydeck) are cleaned daily; some stairwells go uncleaned for long periods and are disgusting (inches of accumulated dog hair; trash)

-Trash chutes broken; trash bags pile up on each floor

-Gate breaks often, about once every month or two. Not a big deal as they just open up the gates, but it is annoying (not to mention unsecure)

In Summary, I would look other places. The Drake, at this point, is a soft "do...