First, the good. The location is perfect, if you're working downtown or within about 10 miles of downtown. You can get to all of the downtown office towers and government buildings on foot or on the cheap local bus, and commutes in all directions but south will be reverse commutes. I've made it to Monterey Park from here in less than 10 minutes during the peak of rush hour.

The design of the building is very late-'70s early-'80s minimalist, and it looks very stark but I think attractive from the outside. The pool area between the two towers is fairly spectacular. The apartments themselves are nothing special though, with large but shallow closets sporting mirrored, sliding doors. Cottage cheese ceilings date the building, as do the tiny, faux wood cabinets in the kitchens. There appears to be a lot of storage space, but the truth is the cabinets are small and the closets well suited for storing clothes and linens only. The appliances could use updating, although they work well enough, and the carpets are alright for apartment carpet, though they all seem to be covered with spots (at least, in the 5 apartments I've seen). The solariums are a unique feature, and while they no doubt help to keep apartments warm in the winter, and provide for great views, I can't help but think they'd be more useful as open balconies. A few people seem to be using their solariums as small offices or breakfast nooks, but most of them are completely empty or used to store junk. Seems sort of a waste of square footage. I'm surprised (stunned, really) more folks aren't using them for plants. Must be the nature of the tenants ? lots of Asian business people here on temporary assignments I believe, along with domestic corporate tenants and students from USC and Loyola.

Unfortunately, the good is completely outweighed by the bad. Parking is a frigging nightmare. You don't have an assigned space, and cars are parked two deep in the garage. Which means you have to leave your key with an attendant if you park behind another car, or you have to wait for an attendant to move a car that's parked behind you. And the parking lots stay FULL because the complex sells parking to outsiders as well as tenants. Tenants are restricted to the 3rd (covered) and 6th (top ? uncovered) floors unless they're willing to pay extra (lots extra) for access to the 4th and 5th levels. If you arrive home after 8PM or so, forget about finding 3rd or 6th floor parking. You're forced to spiral back down to the 2nd floor, and leave your car temporarily there. The attendants will move it up later as space opens on the higher floors. You'll then get to play the wonderful "hunt for your car" game when you go to retrieve your vehicle back on the 2nd floor, as the attendants attempt to locate your keys and direct you the floor (3rd or 6th) your car has been moved to. Hope you weren't planning on getting out of the parking garage in under 15 minutes, cause it ain't gonna happen.

There have been reports of keys being lost, items being taken from cars and cars being stolen. I'm not surprised, given the game of musical chairs taking place in that garage every day.

Security elsewhere in the building is an absolute joke. Guards are supposed to walk regular rounds, but I'm out and about a lot and seldom see them. The locks on many of the entrance doors to the building don't work properly, so the transients in the area could enter the building at will if they wanted to. So could burglars, muggers or rapists. The lighting in the stairwells is poor, and there are lots of dark corners for bad guys to hide in. The grounds are poorly lit at night as well, and there were security cameras, but many seem to be broken or have been removed.

When I first moved in, I had no hot water for over a month, in spite of making several complaints. The water was usually tepid at best, which made showering an adventure. Finally, a lawyer in the building filed a lengthy written complaint ? that got their attention, and the matter was resolved. So unless you're a lawyer, expect them to brush off whatever concerns you might have.

The pool hasn?t been consistently heated during the time I've lived here either, making it somewhat useless. The hot tub was green for a couple of months. Ick.

Nevertheless, management has apparently scared up the funds to replace all the carpet in the hallways with tile. The plus is that the tile won't hold smells like the carpet does (this building stinks from time to time, though I've been lucky and my apartment hasn't been invaded by any nasty odors, yet). The minus is, the tiled halls are incredibly noisy, and the door to my apartment already lets in plenty of hall noise. It'll be much worse once the tile project reaches my floor.

Given the attitude of the management and the generally poor job they're doing maintaining the property (including allowing some stuff to slide that could get them sued, or lead to more expensive repairs down the road), I'd only recommend Promenade Towers to my enemies. For this much rent, you can do much better. You might not get quite as much raw square footage, but you can get as much usable square footage in a place where parking isn't essentially 15 minutes away. 3mPoZ6gGN6wTPgNi4L2C

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