My wife and I moved into this building in July 2000, largely because the market for secure living spaces is tight in this area. We moved here as a military transfer from overseas, so when they said they had a place immediately available, we jumped on it.

I will grant that management and maintenance have improved 100 fold since we moved in, but the cost of that improvement was turnover of staff of unbelievable proportions. This breeds an environment of inconsistency where issues that take time to resolve are never followed-through on.

When we moved in we created a list of things we wanted addressed. This was at their suggestion, like a move-in check sheet. Unfortunately this has been treated like a suggestion. Among our issues were the fact that the kitchen and the walls were not clean. I guess I don't know the rules of rental properties in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but I know that in North Carolina the law requires all apartments inhabited for more than one year to be completely repainted. Our walls had scuff marks, the baseboards were atrociously covered in dirt and layers of dust (in fact you could tell that even older dust had been painted over), and our kitchen walls were covered in grease. Another issue was that over half of the electrical outlets were, and still are, in such disrepair that they won't even hold a plug. You plug something in and it falls right out. Even though maintenance is greatly improved, the answer we get when we ask for the outlets to be replaced with new ones (what do these things cost' maybe $2.50 apiece') is, "Bend your plugs to make them wider. They'll fit then."

Amenities are good. They just renovated the fitness room and it has nice equipment. The appliances, at least the ones we have, are old and outdated. It takes 20 minutes to boil water and 30 minutes to heat the oven to 350 degrees. I will agree with others that I think the electricity bill is a little shady. I'll have an $80 bill, then really focus on keeping usage down, only to be followed by a $100 bill. I turn the a/c and heat off during the day when I am not there so I have no idea how these bills get so high.

Overall, for the two-bedroom/two-bath apartment we rent, it is not worth the $1495/month (that's the military discount rate too). Knowing what I know now, I would have gone elsewhere.

One last thing, the cargo elevator is available for move-in/move-out reservations, but you better be able to finish in a three-hour block. Unless you get to the end of your three hours and no one else has reserved the next block, once that reserved time is up...it's up. Difficult if you're moving yourself and also difficult if you have a lot of stuff to move.

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