Aria At Millenia Apartments — Local services in Orlando

I had lived in Aria for about 3 years or so, just recently moved out. While I will admit the apartment itself was nice, never seen a roach and the maintenance team were always super helpful (which was great cause we needed them on multiple occasions), the neighborhood was a different experience. There was never any parking anywhere (there were too many cars around and quite a few parking spots had small semi trucks parked in them? Even one that had a big gyro truck for some reason, hopefully they are gone. There’s even a car or two that’s been in the same parking spot for as long as I can remember) my roommates car got robbed even though there’s security roaming (on many occasions I have caught security guards sleeping or on their phones while roaming around, I understand they are working the graveyard shift and it’s tiring and boring going around in circles but having your car be broken into while security is roaming kinda defeats the point of security, especially when you’ve seen them sleeping at times) there’s a major raccoon problem, we had told the office about it and they said there’s nothing that can be done about it (please call animal control or something like we pay for pest control and raccoons count as pests, that’s why all the hallways are dirty in the back of the neighborhood compare to the clean one up front that has the model apartment for showing) I don’t understand how people are constantly breaking the front gate, not arias fault of course, people who live there just don’t care. And when you are exiting the building themselves the motion detector ALMOST NEVER catches you so you have to walk back then walk forward to trigger it and even then it still sometimes doesn’t catch you. Can be annoying when you’re running a little behind on schedule. Also the code they give you to open the gate door to the building itself doesn’t work (at least my roommate, my husbands and mine didn’t work, I think they said the building we lived at in particular had problems so maybe we were the only ones)

It’s supposed to be a nonsmoking community but there are plenty of residents who smoke, they recently did put a letter on all the doors reminding everyone not to smoke but people never care as there’s always cigarettes buds on the floor (once again not arias fault it’s just the people who live there) The dog parks are okay, wish they were cleaner or at least taken care of. The big dog park has a weird downhill in it that makes me nervous when my dogs get near. And the smaller dog park always has poop in it cause no one cleans up after their dogs even tho there are stations to pick up (I’ve used those stations a lot, thank you aria) and they do have a dog bathing station by the mail boxes which is nice.

The phone number to the office doesn’t work for some reason, we did already inform the office so they are working on that, hopefully they get it fixed soon.

There’s probably other stuff that I’m missing but that’s okay, overall I felt like my experience with aria was really nice the first year I stayed there, then it started going down hill pretty fast. They did get bought by a new company though so I’m sure they are in the process of changing things and trying to make the neighborhood better but I wouldn’t recommend aria if you are looking for a family oriented place or if you need space. couples who want to move into a one bedroom might be the best fit.

Apartment: 4/5 (required a lot of maintenance but the maintenance team was always quick and efficient) Residents: 2/5 (pick up after your dogs, stop using the dog stations to throw away food and stop smoking in a non smoking community) Office: 3/5 (I did not like that they called us dirty because the raccoons knock over our trash and leave a mess on the floor, we pay for valet trash and use it a lot since we lived in the back of the neighborhood on the third floor we all get home late from work can’t be constantly taking the trash to the trash compactor. The raccoons also get into trash cans around the neighborhood so there’s trash around in the...

The management team at this community originally managed Crest at Millenia (now Century Millenia). In an unnecessary fashion, they suddenly announced a change in property ownership & management. Though unprofessional (they could've announced this much earlier than the day off), good riddance they are gone!

Under their regime, trash ALWAYS flowed from the one dumpster and residents constantly disrespected the valet trash rules. So, the halls regularly looked unpresentable. When brought to their attention, nothing was done to resolve as residents just had to deal with it. Well, you might think this is not the management's fault? I wouldn't think so either... but they clearly state (in writing) upon moving in that residents would lose their valet privileges if multiple violations occurred. This never happened. Furthermore, residents are supposed to be fined for their violations. I doubt this ever happened because having their garbage outside their door just became a staple. And why wouldn't the management really do anything? I can only guess it's because they don't want to make anyone angry and prompt a negative review.

And, Laura Wallace (the property manager) would always refer to residents as family. She's as fake as they come and her fake-ness trickles down into the rest of her team.

I wish this was it, but unfortunately it's not.

The management at Aria are deceitful. For example, Crest experienced two break-ins back to back. As we (the residents) thought, a great feature of Crest is the fact that the Orlando police patrols the community after hours (i.e. when the burglaries occurred). Well coincidently, the police had the night off as it took about 45 min for them to respond to the 911 call. But according to the management (now management at Aria), in their report to the community, they claimed the police responded immediately. Why not just admit the police dropped the ball and report that everything is being done to prevent this in the future? Or at least set better expectations? Do you think the residents don't talk to each other? Do you think we're idiots? People respect honesty and HATE to discover that they're being misled. We're not children. And oh yeah, it was raining the night of the break-ins so the community cameras couldn't make out the burglars. Although, a teenage girl was home alone in one of the units, no one got hurt as she was able to flee to safety by jumping out of the window (first floor). This is actually what happened. My source on this matter is VERY good. Feel free to ask them about this incident when you discuss possibly living at Aria.

You can take this information and do as you may. The units at Aria are sure to look lovely and I'd completely understand anyone wanting to live in them. Just know that the management team is all fluff. Hopefully, you'll be able to confirm this sooner than later... before you look to resolve issues that are seemingly out of their realm of fixing.

Unfortunately, they talk a BIG game but just don't know the first thing of managing and connecting with an apartment community.

Oh and one last thing, this management team has a very slick way of promoting arguments amongst neighbors and taking sides. For example, Crest offers neighbors an app (Active Building) for connecting with one another. It's a great a concept but it is mostly (98% of the time) littered with negative posts about residents' unpleasant living experiences. At one point in time, a specific neighbor complained about issue after issue that the management team seemed to totally disregard via his direct contact with them (i.e. garbage as aforementioned, broken gates, etc). In support of the management team, another neighbor responded by posting nasty comments to this neighbor. In the end, the management team censored the complaining resident by removing his privilege on the app while the other resident who agitated the issue was left to continue posting. Why just reprimand one? Well, because this management team is pity-fully bad.

Aria management, take this feedback...

I lived here from July 2017 to November 2018. Mostly positive memories. Would still be living here if I didn't have to move for work.

The pros: Gorgeous new apartments, top of the line design and amenities. Amazing location. If you get one of the apartments facing the Turnpike, you get fireworks from Mickey Mouse almost every night. Ready access to highways and excellent shopping can't be beat. Although corporate, staff has historically been fantastic and responsive. Seriously, they don't get enough kudos for their work.

The bad: Resident misconduct was out of control, and while management has cracked down on it, there are limits to what they can do. Example 1: paper thin walls and rude people blaring music - if you call the cops and/or security, they'll just shrug and say they can't hear anything, because they're in the breezeway and not facing loud speakers booming right into their living rooms. Example 2: residents letting their dogs off their leashes, residents leaving dog feces about, etc. Example 3: leaking garbage bags left out for the trash valet - this is a problem in hot Florida weather! Example 4: idiots tailgating and hitting the arm of the gate - the poor gate arm is broken more often than not and I always wished that they would install something more durable that could deter unauthorized entrants. Painted sections of concrete near the stairs can get extremely slick during rain. This is a problem in the rainy season and is a lawsuit waiting to happen - I slipped once and was fine, but I'm also relatively young.

The ugly: If you live here, you will be one of the gentrifiers in a gentrifying area. Adjust your expectations accordingly. There are consequences to below market rents - if they bit the bullet and jacked up rents by $400/month or so, the resulting resident churn over a year would do a lot of good in hopefully resolving the resident misconduct problems and also create more dough for better maintenance. It's such a lovely place and deserves to be at its...