West Bottoms Flats — Local services in Kansas City

I lived here on a 13-month lease and absolutely loved my experience. I would've renewed my lease if work was closer to Kansas City.

One important note is that the property was bought by another management company, so the reviews mentioning Josie and Sammie aren’t applicable. That being said, I had zero issues with EPC (new management company) and always felt like they listened to what I had to say. They helped to work with me on some unique circumstances, which I appreciated. Additionally, maintenance did a great job addressing my few requests quickly and was always very kind.

One of my favorite things about living here were the buildings and how so much of the original character was kept. The apartments are generally pretty small from what I saw, but this allows you to pay less in rent at the expense of space. Everything felt very new and clean since it’s only ~3 years old, I believe. Hopefully that keeps up.

The fitness room is excellent and very clean, which I really appreciate compared to some of the other properties I’ve looked at. The parcel room is very secure, although very inconvenient for retrieving packages since it closes at 5:30 PM. Amazon is hit-or-miss on whether they deliver to your door or the parcel room, while all other deliveries go straight to the parcel room.

The valet service is amazing. I was very skeptical when first signing my lease because I thought it’d be more trouble than it was worth and I didn’t know if the valets would be trustworthy. I was wrong on both accounts – there is an app to request your car ahead of time, and the valets are all extremely kind and helpful. Additionally, I appreciated being able to park my motorcycle inside of the garage at no extra charge (although I’m unsure if that policy has changed since the management changed).

Parking outside of the parking garage has been much less convenient than when I first moved in due to all of the construction that is happening nearby. There are still parking spots on the street, but it might be a little bit of a walk. I didn’t see anyone have issues with cars being broken into, even though there are lots of nice cars being parked around this complex. I did hear of one motorcycle being stolen while parked outside, though.

The West Bottoms is a really cool place to live with all of the history, street art, architecture, First Fridays. However, my girlfriend often felt a little uncomfortable walking around the apartment complex outside at night – I think some more lighting on the property grounds would help with that.

All in all, I’d highly recommend living here as long as having a large apartment isn’t the most important thing to you. I had a wonderful experience.

UPDATE 7/31/23 After hearing that the parking garage was closed, I've decided to update my review from 5 stars to 3 stars.

EPC seemed to handle this very poorly. I have friends that were valets, and the valets were only given two weeks notice that they would be losing their jobs due to the garage closing. It sounds like residents were just as surprised.

If the parking garage was not available when I was searching for apartments, I would not have considered West Bottoms Flats. I certainly wouldn't be willing to pay $75 a month for a surface parking lot with absolutely...

I’ve debated writing a review because I never do. I’ve lived in a few different apartments and unfortunately West Bottom Flats has caused the most issues/annoyances for us (my husband and I). We’ve been here for about a year now and thankfully moving out in a month. To start, the ladies at the office are usually nice and helpful. Izzy is amazing and I love her. They are probably the only reason I haven’t gone absolutely crazy. We live in the Wyoming building on one of the top floors, and the elevator in this building goes out CONSTANTLY. It’s been out for over a week period multiple times before. I’m now 6 months pregnant and walking up that many stairs is just an annoyance. It’s gone out consistently over the past year, and it would’ve been nice of them to tell me that it does go out of service often before moving in. We’ve had over 5 packages stolen from the package/mail room. Probably over $400 worth of mail, stolen. They can’t do anything about stolen packages either. Two packages being Hello Fresh, so people will steal your meals. 3 others being amazon, and clothing company packages. Just be aware of your packages. Ever since I started living here, I’ve paid for their garage/valet parking — which is really the only safe option for your vehicle down in the west bottoms. My husband parks his car on the street though, and always has issues finding parking because there is NO street parking available. Now, they have taken away the garage parking, leaving so many residents without parking and now it’s a gamble for everyone on where we will be parking. They have offered for surface lot parking (new lot) which is almost as much as the garage/valet parking. The surface lot provides zero security for your vehicle and belongings and it makes no sense as to why they want to charge people for parking lot parking. Residents will now be forced to pay for overpriced parking because there’s zero street parking. The loading dock door gets stuck constantly on the Wyoming building, and then you have to walk around to another door and hope it opens. The washer and dryer they have downstairs in the Wyoming building smells like mold, the washer/dryer they provide in apartments is small and barely works. There has been homeless men in the downstairs somehow getting in and passing out on the furniture (especially during the winter months) I would not feel safe if I lived here alone. There has been multiple instances where we’ve seen men in ski masks (who don’t live here) in the hallways filming rap videos and refuse to get out of the residents way. There is way more to consider when moving here. It will be interesting how the handle our moving out process, and I’m hoping it’s...

I am really bummed that my time here will be overshadowed with the most unprofessional and disorganized transitions I’ve ever experienced at an apartment. I have loved living in the West Bottoms and I have, for the most part, loved my apartment. Even though there are minimal amenities in the complexes to start, the valet parking was a huge selling point for me as it was convenient and made me feel safe.

A few weeks ago, we got a notice it was closing as of June 1st and were told to contact the office to make arrangements. So I did, but no one knew anything at that time and they were just “taking names down.” Fast forward, we got a note late on Friday, 5/26 (on a holiday weekend) that the transition would start on Monday (when the leasing office was obviously closed). This has pushed anyone that has been getting free, safe and reliable parking to either the street parking that is flooded with construction and minimal, or an uncovered, unfinished parking lot for $75/month (when parking was previously included in my lease). Their team knows this, but it's extremely frustrating to have not even heard back from the leasing office with confirmed solutions (though they've historically been great).

On top of that, the elevator went out again this week, in the middle of the parking debacle. This is probably the 8th time it’s happened since I’ve lived here. I know things happen and it’s always a possibility but, as someone who recently had ACL surgery, it’s been a major inconvenience. You shouldn’t expect something like that to happen consistently.

With all of the redevelopment happening in the area, I anticipate the next few years will be messy and I would just avoid. Especially so if this is how their ownership will be handling any transitions...