The Landmark Square apartments are perfectly situated in one of the truly up and coming neighborhoods of Boston. A first glance at this seemingly wonderful apartment located in a beautiful community on Peterborough St. would have anyone convinced that it's worth $2000 a month to live in a 1 bedroom here. "Professional" community, "concierge service" and "high-end" maintenance and bldg services is what they, at Garrison Square Management (who also maintain equally attractive apts at St. Germain and Garrison Sq.), try to sell to prospective renters. What we have discovered in about a year here is not quite what we had bargained for.

Community - during the day, you do see a lot of young professionals (many working at the various nearby Longwood medical facilities) and young families (many from around the world). However, upon closer inspection, you will also find many BU and nearby college students dorming here - most probably claim "professional" status by virtue of their employed and very-well paid (for that matter) parents who are the guarantors for their rent. On a frequent basis, toddlers will run up and down hallways screaming for dear life. Additionally, Paris Hilton wannabes in the apartment are frequently seen in the elevators with the most adorable chihuahuas and pugs you will see in the Greater Boston area (so much for the pet-free policy). To conclude on community issues, the condo often feels like a good old campus dorm, with frequent and considerably audible weekend parties that last well into the early mornings (last major one was 2 weeks ago, unit 418 - see Fenway Police Dept. noise complaint log). Landmark Sq. does not address these issues, and we learned of this policy when we had to call them regarding frat party noise complaints one early morning and were requested to contact the Police Department (so much for concierge).

CONCIERGE - The concierge is actually great. Problem is he is spread so thin, we are lucky he still delivers our FedExes and packages. Other than that, there is no actually 24-hr concierge - there is an on-call emergency contact phone, but from previous experiences with noise, plubming issues, and blackouts, all we tend to get is polite and thinly-veiled indifference. In fact, the switchboard often doesn't even recognize the apartment known as Landmark Square!!!

MAINTENANCE AND MANAGEMENT - we have had 3 serious cases of mold infestation in the apartment over a period 9 months (always on the same location). Management again thinly veils their indifference and even notes that frankly "preparation for the new July move-ins take precendence over the mold issue" This is a very common response with apartment issues and management's attitude is very much reflected in the maintenance and condition of the interior of the apts - rotting garbage chutes (seldom cleaned and getting worse by the weeks), filthy public corridors (vacuumed perhaps once every 2 weeks at best), a large porcelain toilet water tank sitting in the fire stairs for over a month - STILL THERE AS OF WRITING, and public lights seldom replaced when out (takes about 7-10 days before action is taken). In general, maintenance is fairly atrocious for the money spent in the unit. Conditions have deteriorated over the 9 months we have been here and there is no sign that it will improve anytime soon.)

HIGH-END - other than the exterior semblance of a luxury condo and the indifference one should expect from "luxury condo" management, the only other part that is high end about living here is outrageous rent.

Our first month here was great - new City, new neighborhood, ne unit - we had no idea that the facade of luxury living would thin out so quickly! If you really like dorm living, this is the place - just don't expect to pay dorm prices for this lemon on Peterborough St.

User Responses
From: johntherenter	Date: 07/27/2005
I agree with the above review, except for the part about the concierge. He's more like an onsite manager and not very helpful. But overall very well written. 418 had another party between 2am and 4am this past weekend, which only slightly bothered me because of all the noise escaping from their open balconey. The place is perfect for rich college kids. One last thing, the rent seems to be way above market value. With so many vacancies, you'd think the management would lower it, but then again, the management here is a bunch of rude morons.

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