What you have to understand when reading these things is that people have the tendency to complain. I can say honestly that I enjoy living here, and most of my neighbors do, too. That's the bottom line, I suppose.

But there are problems, and a couple of serious ones that should be addressed but never are. Other issues are taken care of immediately...I don't know how they prioritize things around here.

Parking -- This is the main thing I have a problem with. I park in the outside lot on the corner of Austin and Bellvue. The gate that you drive your car through breaks pretty often. Worse, the pedestrian gate on the corner is ALWAYS messed up. They don't oil the hinges, so if there's the slightest breeze the gate will not close. And if it's not closed, obviously it's not locked. To me this is a huge problem. Right now there's not even a doorknob/lock in the gate at all. For a week it's been broken. Also, not too long ago at the back of the parking lot a huge section of fence was down. I guess a car ran into it or something. It took a week to get that fixed. How many welders are there in Dallas' I'm sure one could have come out the SAME DAY. Unless you park in the lot behind the building or in the garage (both cost extra), consider the parking UNSECURE. And in this neighborhood that's not a good thing. I only had a problem finding a space one time. That was when they were throwing some shindig and let guests park in our lot that we pay for as part of our rent. That's pretty messed up, but again it only happened once and I've been here a while.

Noise -- I have a noisy neighbor. Management has handled him pretty well, though. You get some street noise from Lamar Street but it's nothing overwhelming. Anyway as far as neighbors go they'd have to be very loud to be heard, given the way this place is constructed.

Grounds -- There aren't many grounds, but what grounds do exist are maintained very nicely.

Safety -- The building is close to a very bad neighborhood but I have no safety complaints here. There's people patrolling the area, and the police headquarters is also across the street. Building access is pretty tight.

Construction -- Solid. They must have spent millions on renovation. I think it's a shame they put cheap appliances in. Other than that everything is pretty good.

Maintenance -- I've never had any trouble with them. Not a lot has gone wrong, but what has gone wrong was repaired in a very timely manner. One of the reviewers apparently had a problem but I've never had one.

Staff -- Everyone is friendly and helpful. Although I do wish some of them wouldn't use the elevator to go up or down one floor. One time I asked one person why they did it. "Well we do it all day and we get tired". No, you don't do it all day. I've never, ever seen anyone who works here (save one guy) use the stairs. Minor complaint unless an elevator is broken.

Overall/Miscellaneous -- I think some of the reviews are stupid, frankly. Are there problems' Yeah. No place is perfect, though. I've owned my own home and had more trouble with it than I've had here, that's for sure. Anyway here are some random things:

The pool on the roof is cool, but it's only a lap pool. You can't really swim in it as it's only a few feet deep.

I've looked at the website, and the views for certain apartments are way off. The photos were taken before the police station was built, so if you get an apartment facing Lamar that's what you're going to be looking at. Not that what's behind the PD is anything special anyway.

Unless you live on certain sides of the building you cannot put up your own dish. Antennae will not work here, so if you want to watch TV you're going to have to use Grande Communications. There's another reviewer who explains it pretty well. I've also lived in Austin and Grande down there is great. Up here, not really. But they have gotten things MUCH BETTER. Problem is, you get DishNetwork through them. It's not cable. That's good and bad. Good because Dish's DVR is awesome. Bad because it costs more to get it through Grande and you get less on top of that. Not much HD. Someone said they only got 1.5 megs down on their dsl, but I get 4. I'd like to go faster but it's not an option right now as far as I know. In any event I'm paying more than enough for what I have. But it is reliable these days and I wanted to point that out. And it's also worth saying that Grande's office down in San Marcos is much, much more pleasant to deal with than any other cable company.

I'll come right out and say it. This neighborhood blows. Boring. While it may be "urban living" you have to drive to do anything out of the ordinary. The light rail is nearby but it doesn't really take you to a lot. It's useful for going to the movies, but it shuts down at midnight so you may have to take a cab home. There are a few bars around but nothing that excites me too much. The Paladium is like a block a way. On occasion they'll have a real good show. My Bloody Valentine came through not too long ago, for example. You have Bills Records and Tapes next door, which is cool. Poor David's is next to that, if you're into the kind of music played there. There's a jazz place the other way down the street but jazz makes me nervous for some reason. There's a grocery store in the basement, and I love most of the people who work there but the prices on some things are totally outrageous. On other things the prices are fine. It's weird. It's an improvement over the convenience store that was there before it, though. There are three restaurants in the neighborhood (one in the building) and I've been to them all, but don't like any of them. You may feel differently. There's also a coffee shop in the basement that's pretty good. And a bar that I don't like much but I'm sure others would love.

So the neighborhood's kind of dead. I think there's a lot of stuff planned, but the economy probably has it on hold. Some buildings have been demolished, though. The area's proximity to downtown and access to rail is great...I'm not sure why uptown has exploded and nothing gets done here.

Anyway, I've lived here almost three years and am happy. Believe me, I would not stay here if I weren't. This is actually probably the best place I've rented at, all in all.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/23/2009
Hello, I live at South Side and also work for the owners of the building, and I just wanted to thank you for your comments. They are quite real and honest, and it's important for us to get feedback like this, particularly when the problems are solvable. And... I'm very happy that you like living here. I love living at South Side, but I'm biased. Although some of our neighborhood plans have slowed a little... they are certainly still in the works. We love South Side and are committed to the building and the neighborhood, which is why I appreciate the constructive criticism -- ("This neighborhood blows" wasn't all that constructive, but I'm still listening, I like your style) If you (or anyone reading this) has further questions, comments, or wants to see some of the future plans for the neighborhood, email me (Adam) at apeterson@matthewssouthwest.com
From: JackRuby	Date: 06/23/2009
Well, maybe "the neighborhood blows" was a little strong. To be more fair, as an aging hipster, Dallas in general blows these day. There's no local music scene. I mean DENTON has a better music scene than Dallas does. Seriously. I'd like to see more bars like the now-defunct Trees open up around here (or anywhere). Places like Deep Ellum Live, the Galaxy Club, etc. All gone. It's not the neighborhood's fault because back then I don't think anything was here at all. Hopefully someday when I'm too old to enjoy it, the Cedars become what Deep Ellum once was. Vibrant and fun. Anyway I see you got the parking lot gate fixed, and that's good. I knew they were working on it, but maybe it's a good idea to have a spare lock around? Or maybe you've done that now. I recently read in the paper about a development at the corner of Cadiz and Industrial. It said there was going to be a pedestrian bridge over the tracks and onto Bellvue so I'm guessing you guys are in on that. Minor League ballpark and some kind of amusement park? I think that would be great. There are two things I can think of that you guys could do to improve everyone's lives who are here. Negotiate with Grande and get them to either add more HD to their HD package for the same rate they're charging now, or make them charge less. Secondly, since I've lived here there appears to be some abandoned construction on the roof. Looks like they were building a deck and just stopped. Either clear it all off or finish it. That's actually the best place to get a view if you want to have friends and family over for a get together, and you can't even walk over there without crossing the scary yellow tape and having to dodge all those beams. I don't think I've met you, Adam, but thanks for responding. It's good to know you guys read this...I only posted it last night.
From: nimbusthegreat	Date: 07/17/2009
I would mostly agree with this review. I've lived here for not quite 3 years (in 3 different units, but that's because of my craziness, not theirs) and I have loved my time here, for the most part. There have been a couple of little issues along the way but that's to be expected living anywhere. I agree it took them a long time to get the gated uncovered parking gate fixed. But with that said, I've never had any issues with that lot. It's patrolled and I've never seen anyone skulking around that doesn't belong. I also agree it's time to update the website. The view pictures are off but you will realize that once you come look at a unit or two. I wish they would have pictures of the lofts themselves on there. I know it's an expense but you really don't know how each of these lofts looks if you don't go in them and I didn't have the leasing agent drag me to every single available loft when he was showing them to me. We looked at 4 and with almost a hundred different floorplans, that's the tip of the iceberg. While the neigborhood isn't as fully developed as I'd like to see it, it has come a long way in the short time I've been here. And I have faith that there is a master plan and it is moving forward. Our courtesy patrol covers a fairly big area to make sure that our residents are safe and they will escort you to and from if you need them to. For the most part the staff is fantastic. Two standouts in my mind are Marcus (the concierge) and Valerie (the resident manager). Both of them will go the extra mile to make sure you have what you need and I appreciate that. I never really take the DART anywhere so I can't comment on that but I do know they are opening the Deep Ellum station in September. Deep Ellum has gone through a lot of changes in the last few years and I was around to remember much of the late part of the heyday. There is still live music happening down there, and downtown, and on lower Greenville and in other pockets throughout the city. Yes, Denton has a vibrant scene, so does Ft Worth but Dallas is my home and it's the scene I most often kick around in so I had to jump in and say something to this point. BTW, Trees reopens in mid-August. As for Grande, I hate them. They have improved greatly over the last year but they caused me so much grief over the first year or so that I was ready to move out over them. ATTENTION ANYONE THAT SIGNS THE BUILDING CABLE CONTRACT....GRANDE SUCKS AND YOU SHOULD NEVER SIGN A 10 YEAR CONTRACT WITH A FLY BY NIGHT COMPANY LIKE THAT!!! Like I said, they have improved greatly which makes them still sub-par in their offerings and treatment of customers compared to other providers I've had over the years. They finally have HD available although it is much more expensive than going with DISH. They finally upped the internet speeds to 3.0 DSL about 6 months ago and then, without telling anyone they offered 6.0 speeds but nobody here knows it's available. Personally, now that I live in a loft that can get DISH directly I am going that route once my renter's insurance is in place. I'll have to keep GRANDE for internet but I really hope that they are thrown out of this building when the contract comes up for renewal. Hell, I want them thrown out now. I'm sure the Southside lawyers could find a way to get out of the contract due to poor performance. An 11 hour window for them to come is ridiculous. And being stood up after waiting around 11 hours is beyond unacceptable. I was livid when that happened to me. Twice. I also agree with the half finished deck up top. What's up with that? Finish it or pull it up. All in all though this is the best place I've lived and after looking at other buildings in downtown I would say this is still the best price/square footage/ammenities of the properties I looked at. I was shocked at how much space I could get for how inexpensive it was (compared to other lofts downtown). I love it here and will probably be here for years to come unless I decide to move over to the Beat condos!

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