Alexandra Balaban

Good: Right on the water. Large apartments. Great maintenance staff. Good neighbors. Bad: Very old appliances. EXTREME construction noise. 24 hour skyscraper construction permit across the street, and concrete breaking going on for 9-10 hours a day next door. Rent rising by about $180 each year. Charge you about $65 a month on top of quoted rent for building electricity, sewer, trash, and a billing fee. Charge you $10 tax for the $125 second parking spot. The service door to the garage lets people squeeze by when locked. Move out: They charge you $140-$200 to repaint no matter what. Which is strange because it doesn't look like the place was painted when I moved in. They charge you to replace old, cracked appliances that work perfectly well. Too bad we missed the minuscule crack upon move-in. (Apparently all the older microwaves had the same tiny stress related crack on the door which did not affect functioning. Since the model was so old that parts were no longer sold, they decided that a completely new microwave would have to be bought. And upon move-out charged us $279 to upgrade their old microwave.) Charged us to clean the apartment after we spent 5 hours cleaning. You will lose most of your $1000 security deposit. Summary: Could be a nice building since it is on the water and the people living there are nice. However, the current construction noise makes it unbearable to live there. Plan on paying for a professional deep clean and repaint upon move out. Go over everything with a fine-tooth comb when you move in and document with pictures. Edit: removed the microwave charge and reduced the painting charge after a complaint. Apparently you need to pay for a professional deep-clean and then submit a receipt upon move out, although no one told us that. (Maybe it was in the huge move-out packet? I didn't see it there.)