Slate — Local services in Seattle

2023 update: Wow! The change in this building has been night and day thanks to the new management team and Greystar finally budgeting for some wonderful upgrades. Specifically:

Every common space has received a full connectivity (i.e. new TVs and smart device link-ups) and interior furnishings upgrade. This includes the workout room with brand-new machines and weights.

As I said the new management has been lovely. Brooke, Desmond and Sarah go out of their way to hear and respond to long-standing concerns; they are eager to help their tenants and talk to them with a genuine friendliness while maintaining the utmost professionalism. I stop by the office just to chat with them from time to time. I have noticed many positive enhancements under their direction such as: overall increased building cleanliness, vast reduction of dog waste inside and outside, reduction of overall noise complaints, reduction of random odors, an increase in the speed of communication, a passion to help residents and even small business owners!

Other pros:

QFC is literally across the street.

Very few kids in the building, lots of cute dogs! The average resident age here is probably between 23 and 45.

Access to the beautiful Interbay Stadium and the fields is very convenient. Especially for Ballard FC games!

The interior of apartments is very modern. I love the style.

This building is LEED certified and this has been most apparent as I haven’t had to turn on my heat once throughout winter. Even with a window open my apt hangs around 64 degrees except on the coldest nights and all I have to do is shut the windows for the heat to run back up to 68. All appliances including the shower are water and energy saving and my utilities bill has really shown this.

Cons:

Waiting for Slate to get rid of Fetch delivery, it’s supposed to happen soon but until then it’s still a liability and an awful waste of time.

Greystar will raise your rent up to 20% every time your lease is up.

Crime is notably down in the area but there are still some car break-ins from time to time and some regular rogue individuals wandering the block who have threatened tenants.

Parking is BAD. Like worse than Capitol Hill. There are FIVE high-rise apartments on a single block and maybe 35 unmarked/no-limit/no-pay spots (meaning everyone who can’t afford a garage spot is fighting daily for the no-limit spots). Tenants here are very inconsiderate of how they park here and there are very few spots where you can park in the area without getting towed or ticketed. Some residents even try to leave their junk cars in no-limit spots for over 4 weeks until you report them. The city of Seattle monitors this area precisely because of how hard it is not to violate time or space restrictions- further complicated by the fact that Slate and every other building charges $175/mo to park in the garage. And when the stadium is having events or afternoon youth sports you can forget street parking.

Other cons are, for the most part, due to other tenants not considerate in shared-space living. A LOT of my previous issues (trash and loud music on weeknights) have as of late been promptly resolved by the management team. There still remain a handful of instances of individuals letting their dog piss or puke or, when in heat, leaving small spots of blood around elevators and hallways and not bothering to clean it up. A few weeks ago someone spilled something very sticky all over the elevator floor and just left if for people to walk onto. Luckily management said they will be installing more cameras in...

My time living in the apartment was great and I had no issues but moving out has been a complete nightmare. The apartment complex did not give clear instructions on their move out process and their expectations other than filling out a piece of paper stating you were moving out and a forwarding address. Additionally after moving out I continued to get billed for rent and utilities. I asked the apartment manager to help clear these up. He made promises to fix them and then never did. All I ever got were apologies and empty promises. It had now been almost 60 days and I have yet to receive my deposit back as well. I have had to file small claims with the city of Seattle. In working with the apartment manager to try and get this issue resolved he has again made empty promises that I would receive my deposit back by a certain date. As someone who was in an MFTE apartment it is incredibly shady and disgusting that an apartment complex is taking advantage of families and individuals who are already struggling financially to support themselves and then using that deposit to profit. It’s not worth it to live here only to be avoided in email for days and refuse to get answers and easy communication. I know I’m not the only person who has probably gone through this experience. I’m also aware that grey star (the company that manages slate) has multiple active and open lawsuits against them for similar issues to mine. Be aware of this before signing a lease and do the research...

If I could give Slate, along with their entire management and maintenance team, zero stars - I absolutely would.

In the 16 months of residency, my fiancé and I had the experience from Hell. Starting with an un-cleaned unit upon move-in, followed by a leak (that they NEVER actually fixed); along with a flood from maintenance drilling into the sprinkler system then being without hot water from January, continuing through the end of May (when we finally left).

We tried communicating with the manager, Mary but were constantly left with issues unresolved. We had a meeting with the regional manager, Christina, who was very helpful in the beginning. However, the more and more issues we had in the unit, the less we heard from her, until she finally stopped responding to us.

We spoke to multiple other tenants upon their move-outs, they all had similar experience with management being unhelpful and essentially, unresponsive, unless you threaten to sue them with legal action.

The cherry on top of how we were treated at Slate, was when we were finally moving out and Mary's boyfriends truck was parked illegally in the loading zone. When he finally moved his truck, our movers tried to assist him in getting out of the tight squeeze - Her boyfriend ended up verbally harassing the two movers while she just sat in the front seat.

Slate is in constant violation of basic tenants rights. Save yourself a lot of time, energy and money - Do not sign...