We hope you don t mind long reviews, because that s what this is going to be. We aim to give a complete account of our experience here.

First on the list: safety and environment. There are 39 units, all of which have seen some degree of use over the 20 years they have existed. The apartment building is situated in a blue-collar neighborhood on J Street between Capitol Parkway and 27th Street. It is near Lincoln High as well. Other close businesses include a gas station, a Little Caesar s Pizza, an Ace Hardware, Ideal Grocery (one of the best grocery stores in Lincoln!), and a hairdresser s.

Safety might be a concern here, since there have been a couple incidents involving parties and the theft of a CD binder from our car. At other times, we ve smelled the strong scent of marijuana in the 2nd floor hallways, and on the day we moved out there was a drug bust across the street.

Management and maintenance are good. No complaints. CIP has treated us fairly. The current manager is very understanding and responsive to resident requests and complaints. Maintenance and groundskeeping is good as well; maintenance requests are usually filled fast. We also felt that the return of our deposit was handled fairly.

We now have to say some things about the condition of the buildings. Our apartment was on the top floor. We had two significant problems; the first was with the skylight, which leaked during periods of heavy rain, and this caused water stains on the ceiling. The second problem is with mysterious smells in the west-facing downstairs room. Ever had the smell of sewage just come and go' We could never figure out what the cause was, and even though we tried several things with the furnace, we could never quite rid ourselves of the smell. We wound up not using that room much. And speaking of smells, the first floor hallway, which we occasionally walked through, usually does not smell good. There are also stained places on the carpet in the building s hallways.

The laundry machines are also not very good they are older, and do not function as well as a new one might. A few of the dryers do not dry clothes very well, and two of the washers (on the 3rd and 2nd floors) are prone to ending their wash cycle before draining has stopped, thus leaving your clothes soaked.

Now to the parking situation. There is a 39-car parking lot behind the building, with several visitor spaces, and plenty of street parking available around the building. You are assigned one stall behind the building, and you are supposed to park there and only there. Visitors can be towed if they violate the rule, which unfortunately does happen. We had five cars towed out of our near-the-door spot. To us, this means that some people in Capitol View are not very conscientious about reminding their guests of this.

Cost - the south-facing apartments are very easy to keep warm in the winter, and we suspect that the north-facing apartments are easy to keep cool in the summer. Rent can be somewhat expensive for the upper-floor apartments. Ours was $720/month. It is mostly, we think, due to Capitol View s proximity to downtown that rent is as high as it is here. There are more economical (and nicer!) apartments to be had in Lincoln. But if you want an apartment fairly close to downtown, this seems to be a good spot.

Overall, we give Capitol View a lukewarm recommendation, but we want to make absolutely clear that there are downsides to living here. We do not believe living here will be a nightmare, but we do believe that you should be given a full account of what awaits you if you move here.

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates