ICON at Dulles — Local services in McNair

I'm only reporting facts.

AMENITIES: Pools- There are multiple pools; however, they are all unattended, poorly maintained, and poorly filtered. Due to the pools being surrounded by trees and other ICON buildings there is a lot of leaves and misc items (band-aids, trash) floating in the pool even during pool hours.

Basketball court- The basketball court is advertised as having "Personal Sound Controls" which is an OUTDATED first gen IPOD hookup for the speakers in the court. They need to change this ASAP as nobody is able to use this.

Parking garage- THE ARCHITECT OF THE GARAGE IS SO HORRIBLE. EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT I'VE SPOKEN TO HAS ADMITTED TO BEING IN A CAR ACCIDENT WITH ANOTHER VEHICLE IN THE GARAGE, ALMOST BEING HIT OR ALMOST HITTING A PEDESTRIAN IN THE GARAGE, AND/OR DAMAGING THEIR CAR (knocking car alignment off, scraping paint off car, etc) WHILE ENTERING/EXITING THE GARAGE DUE TO THE VERY TIGHT TURN NEEDED TO ENTER/EXIT THE SECURITY BARRIER. The garage is not worth $35/mo given the damage your vehicle will soon face.

Street parking- JUST AS BAD AS THE GARAGE. Due to everyone avoiding the catastrophic garage setup; street parking is nonexistent at night (only available 11pm-7am). During the day there is nowhere to park on the street because majority of the street parking is limited to 15min parking and some side streets are limited to 2hr parking. This is not a graveyard shift friendly property.

Trash- The hallways STINK from the trash rooms. Each floor has a terrible stench. Most times people place furniture, huge unbroken down boxes, bags of trash, and etc right in the trash room rather than disposing of the trash properly (down the shoot or in the dumpster itself). To make it worse, if you prefer to take your own trash out (maybe because you work overnight and miss the time period for trash pickup from your door making this amenity useless), management will not remove the trash fee of $25/mo.

NOISE: Planes- I personally enjoy the sound of planes; it reminds me that I have places to visit LOL.

Construction/Maintenance- EVERY SINGLE DAY THERE ARE LOUD BANGS AND BOOMS which again makes this property a terrible choice for night shift workers.

Dog park- No matter where you are on the property the dogs howl to the top of their lungs like wolves. The dog park is a great amenity but the sound travels which makes this annoying at times.

Kids- Kids will be kids of course. However, be prepared to hear kids yell all day and night as well. Inside and outside of the building you will hear kids. The screams and yells do not end.

Neighbors- The walls are not paper thin but they are certainly not hard to hear through. You can hear someone's entire conversation just from standing in the hallway and or sitting in a room adjacent from theirs in your home.

SECURITY: Building security- You are charged $10/mo for "building protection" yet every single time I have groceries delivered or have guests over (night or day) they have no need to use my call box code because the doors to the building are already wide open for anyone to enter. I DO NOT FEEL PROTECTED AT ALL.

Homelessness- Each night there are people sleeping in the garage stairwells. During the day these same people are lingering around the property smoking substances making this area unsafe.

All in all:

Yes, the apartments are nice, chic, and modern;

Yes, most staff are friendly;

Yes, the name of the property is appealing;

Yes, it is very convenient to have the train station in the neighborhood;

BUT YOU PAY OVER $2000/mo for rent AND amenities; not just looks.

Please look at nearby properties that at MINIMUM have a better garage for...

I have lived in this apartment for 5 years with little to no issues, but my recent experience with the rude and unhelpful concierge employee has changed my mind about using amenities and extending my stay here.

I had the concierge desk refuse to give me my back my ID while she gave me exaggerated and aggressive remarks about the state of the borrowed club room. She gave me a piece of her mind, made assumptions about how I must live in my home, and told me I’ve been reported with pictures for “trashing the clubroom” and “leaving the theater room discombobulated”.

To give context, I invited 14 adult friends for board games and snacks. When I asked her what exactly my friends and I had done to warrant this reaction, she mentioned 3 things: “Trashed Clubroom”: my friends and I had actually packed all the trash in a trash bag and neatly placed it next to the bin in the corner which was already filled before we started. We re arranged all the table decorations we moved to facilitate our board game evening, wiped the counters and tables clean of any food, and returned all the clubroom equipment we borrowed 10 minutes before the closing time.

Included in her complaint of “discombobulated theater” - we left 2 cabinet doors open. Which were open because she did not know how to operate the theater system when asked for help, and I had to try and figure out myself. At one point, she also just handed me a bucket of remote controllers because she didn’t know which one worked for the TV. We ended up not using the theater room at all - because she told us they don’t allow video games to be plugged in! The remote controllers were returned after use.

Left pool table uncovered - again, we put away and returned all the borrowed equipment. My friends and I started cleaning up 20 minutes before closing time, and she came in 10 minutes before closing time to close the lights, bring down the blinds, and rush us out of the clubroom. I cannot go stumbling around in the dark unused theater room to close the cabinets and find the pool table covering.

The 3 things mentioned take less time to fix than taking pictures and reporting for “damages” - which would have been taken care of if we didn’t get rushed out so the concierge could clock out at 10:55 PM.

People who do not lift a finger to help, like to do the bare minimum before clocking out, and make assumptions about how you must live in your home — they should not be hired in a concierge role as it provides a wrong image for an otherwise great apartment management team. I do not appreciate disrespect - especially when it is unwarranted.

On the other hand, I’ve had an amazing experience with Robert, Michael, and Thania. They run an excellent...

I have been a resident in the ICON now for 18 months and for the first year I would have to say the this a 4.5 star luxury apartment with great amenities. JLB Partners built the facilities and had TRS run the operations. All maintenance was covered (i.e. light bulbs, AC filter and fridge filter) and bragged about that it was advantage to living there and made the cost fiscally affordable. They even had semi-annual walk throughs to replace the filters and fix any lighting issues. Now JLB took over the operations and the facilities have slowly degraded. Maintenance is now not being performed on the facilities and in-apartment maintenance is charged.

The main recreation room projection Hi-def TV has not worked properly for the last year and the front office even though they have tried to get the problem resolved between FIOS and the installer, there has been no resolution. All the rec rooms ice makers have been non-working for the last 6 months. The front office now looks shabby, with carpet well past replacement state. The upper floors used to be vacuum on a weekly basis have not been vacuum in several weeks, even after they have been asked to be maintained. Also the most seasoned maitenance personnel have now left because of issues with the management to lowering maintenance costs.

The front office staff seems to get fired on a bi-weekly basis, with no cohesion or tenante relationships that can be built. The first year it felt like a community where the office staff lived in the apartments and you got to know them, so that you felt like you were not just another pretty face. The facility is on its forth manager in the last 6 months and the office staff has been completely churned over since then.

When my wife and I applied to live there we filled out an application and were checked for proper credit and background to ensure that we could meet our obiligations. This took over a week to be approved and I have a FICO score above 800 and own another home out of state. I have now witness the front office renting the units while waiting for a package and stating to them that you can be in tomorrow, just fill out this application. Standards have been lowered.

Rumor has it that they are now just trying to fill the three buildings to close to 100% to make the property more attractive to sell.

My advice is not walk, but run away from these units, with new construction all around the Herndon, Chantilly and Ashburn areas, there more apartments available and more affordable with the same upgrades at 10 to...