Promenade at Irvine Spectrum — Local services in Irvine

I’ve been here for just over a month, and it’s been comedic. The issues, inconveniences, the incompetence… truly impressive. Let’s see the cool features of life at Promenade: They give key fobs instead of keys! So cool and technologically advanced! Except that for the first month, they didn’t work on any doors into the building. They mostly do now, but only on the third try. You sure can trust their systems. Two parking spots! Nice! If the garage door worked consistently, you’d be able to use them too! Ant infestations everywhere around the building. Luckily for us, on move-in they were only in the kitchen cabinets, island and balcony. Took a few tries for pest control to get rid of them over 3 weeks. On sep 6th weekend, they ran out of “pest control” stickers, so like a reasonable company, they went and okayed it to spray anyway without letting people know their units were toxic to be in. Classic joke. They just finished construction! Nice! But the project next block over just picked up, and there’s another one across the trail that also just picked up. Monday-Friday 7am-5pm, you’ll be reminded of this. If you payed for that view, you payed to see how CAT trucks work. Call boxes didnt work for the first month. They do now, but still. A whole month. Back to the topic of construction, they just announced that they’ll replacing the temporary sewer line throughout November to January. Love the immersion here, it’s not enough to hear the construction. Gotta smell it too. There’s questionable plumbing in this building. If you’re one of the lucky winners like we were, you may have a second showerhead that’ll blow water out the ceiling lights in your bathroom. broken glass all over the garage floor. I’ve seen maintenance notice it, and they’ve done other work around it. Just… idk, pick it up? Why is there so much broken glass on the garage floor? people leave trash in the garage because either they couldn’t be bothered to find the trash room, or management didn’t disclose well enough where it is on move-in. It’s remarkably easy to find. Took management a month to complete a reasonable accommodation request, and they only tried to get us to pay for it twice! Gotta respect that hustle! The windows are thick and soundproof. Which is cool… however the walls are paper thin, and the ceilings made of cardboard. You could hear a pin drop at your neighbors place. Literally, a pin. it’s been over a month since the building opened up and socal Edison still doesn’t have metering set up. Any response to inquiries about if we’ll get electricity randomly taken from us because of this boils down to “trust, we got this”. You sure can trust in their systems.

All this is cool and you could experience it too! There’s so many things that have happened that I probably missed a few. Oh wait! One more thing!

We changed our parking spot through an accommodation request, and once approved we signed a document appended to our lease to cover that change. Management told us it is our new spot in writing and verbally. However, Promenade didn’t update their systems of this change and assigned the spot to someone who just moved in. This person had our car towed based on the understanding that this was their assigned spot. Wrote this on my way to pick my car up, on a Friday night. You sure can trust their systems. Thanks promenade

I want to update my review with some more gratitude… Promenade is all the things I mentioned below, but thought our first year here we noticed resident services falling short. They were pretty unresponsive: Emails would go unanswered, the phone would rarely be answered, requests made seem to fall in deaf ears and it was a revolving door of people working there, who each would have different answers to simple questions like, “Are the pools heated?” Took months to get an answer to that question!

Well, that all changed some months ago when Jacqueline was brought on. She answers emails promptly, professionally and with uncommon courtesy—even when the email she was answering was not so friendly (complaining about something). She’s knows most answers to questions about the community and, if she doesn’t, legit tries to find them. She has really changed my opinion of Resident Services here!

Also, the Cafe was taken over by a new company that expanded the menu, made some creative changes and employs really friendly, responsive staff. AND they added pool side food and beverage service! This is like living at a fancy hotel now! They also started doing movies on the lawn and food & beverage tasting events. Very fun!

It is definitely elevates living at Promenade! We signed on for another year!

We just moved into Promenade and couldn’t be happier! We have been so impressed with the community… the drive into the complex was very impressive! It looks like you’re driving down a palm-tree lined street in Beverly Hills or into the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. In fact, the way the entire complex is designed is very much like a luxury resort. It is just GORGEOUS and even better in person than in pictures. I move often so I have lived in a lot of apartment complexes. So far, this is my hands-down favorite. It has wonderful amenities and thoughtful features and appointments (see below). Throughout our search for an apartment (which was months’ long), we found the leasing and residential service staff informative, helpful, friendly and accommodating. In fact, we noticed each staff member - from the cafe to the grounds keepers - very friendly.

Promenade has boosted community living up several notches with its on-site cafe (which is SO much more than a cafe). For one thing, it is huge. It has lots of comfortable seating and semi private little nooks, all with access to power outlets and solid wifi. The food choices are like a restaurant in variety and quality. They have changing menu features along with consistent daily favorites. On Fridays they do outdoor barbecuing with a smoker, they have taco Tuesdays, rotating specials, a wine & beer bar and even Karaoke night!

The pools are beautiful and clean and 2 of the jacuzzis have WATERFALLS! The fitness center is state of the art and they offer free classes, such as yoga.

There are also a lot of nice little things that make life easier, such as: extra wide doors and hallways (moving furniture in was a breeze), outlets that are not all on the floor so you don’t have to bend all the way down to plug things in. There is good consistent water pressure, plenty of hot water, nice screens and quality windows and STELLAR appliances(!!!). The floor plans are smart and bathrooms are big. The trees and flowers are beautiful, well kept and smell great! And even though some people are messy, and this place is HUGE and filled with people, it’s CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN! I haven’t seen a dead bug or stained carpet. There is complimentary, locked bicycle storage and reasonably-priced general...

I lived here for 4 years and recently moved out - now time to write my review of my experience.

Overall, I give Promenade a solid 3 stars. The community is absolutely beautiful and in a great area. The maintenance and cleaning staff do a great job on keeping the grounds clean. The San Diego Creek Trail is great to walk on and get some exercise. It is also nice to be able to walk to Whole Foods, restaurants, Starbucks, etc. The gym and pools are also great, although the pools get very busy with residents and their guests during summer weekends. The cafe is nice to sit in and do work but too expensive to buy food and drinks.

Promenade loses two stars for the following reasons: Building/construction quality I lived in Building 5 and moved in November 2020, which means construction of the building completed during COVID times. I strongly believe this is a reason for some of the issues I faced in my apartment. The electrical set up didn't seem to be good quality. - I couldn't use an air fryer or Keurig without tripping the circuit breaker. This was incredibly frustrating and surprising for being a newly built apartment. Maintenance offered no other solution other than to use another outlet. Several outlets in the kitchen had this problem, and it felt like I had to do some physics problems to find the right configuration so I can use my appliances. I lived in many apartments before and never had a tripped circuit breaker from using the coffee maker. Try to live on the top floor, as you will hear all steps from your upstairs neighbor. I could hear dogs barking and crying, running around, kids running around, etc. Not a great experience and I could tell the apartment was cheaply built. Not sure if the newer built buildings face the same problems. I would advise against moving into Buildings 4 and 5 as they were finished during COVID.

Promenade loses another star for lack of rule enforcement from management. An AirBNB moved into the apartment above me, and I provided all evidence to management. Despite it being explicitly prohibited in our lease agreement AND illegal in City of Irvine, management did not enforce their own rules and let the AirBNB continue to operate. This meant having numerous guests in the apartment above me who did not care how loud they were. Eventually the AirBNB did move out, but it took close to 6 months. The community has a lot of EV chargers available, but it is Irvine so there are an increasing number of EVs at Promenade. Often times these chargers would be blocked by selfish drivers who think they can use the chargers as their own personal parking space. Management's solution to this is to call courtesy patrol so they can cite the car. Courtesy patrol does leave notes, but Irvine Company does not tow. Therefore, there are no consequences, just a measly note on the car. Management also refuses to send out wide communications reminding residents of the EV charger rules, which makes me believe they don't really care. The bidet drama. After having bidet attachments on my toilets for all 4 years, suddenly they were not allowed and needed to be removed ASAP. They stated they will come by and do another inspection on a certain day to make sure the bidets were removed. Guess what - THEY NEVER CAME. Take that as you will.

Overall, I would recommend Promenade for the nice and manicured areas and nearby attractions but recommend moving into a newer building...