This property has gone through two ownership changes since I moved here after carefully and repeatedly checking it out in 1995. Back then it was owned by the man who originally built it; he had apparently paid off the note and saw no need to increase rents on a yearly basis, but still managed to keep the place up, including an on-site manager who kept hours even on Sunday and an on-site maintenance man who daily dealt with trash on the grounds and in the trash rooms and chute. Now you're lucky to be able to throw something down the chute Sundays since it's normally jammed by then, and by then the garbage rooms are choked with recyclables and full trash bags that people leave there. No wonder there's now a rat and roach problem here. The new owner, AIMCO, a real estate investment trust, bought it about 1999 and has promised ever since to upgrade the property. However, the first thing they tried to do was jack up rents 15% in one year; only after a tenant's association was formed and it went to the city did AIMCO back off and increase by only 7% the first year, 7% the second year, and now they want to increase by 5%, each increase being above the national and local inflation rate with a charge for water tacked on. This is too much; they don't deserve my money anymore. For all that extra money they're pulling in we've received a lobby refurbished with rented furniture, scent dispensers in the hallways to cover up the odor from the trash rooms, insipid Muzak in the lobby and elevators that would be banned on Metro, and that's it, although we could use grounds that are litter-free, dead trees removed, dead limbs both on the ground and in the trees threatening to come down on someone or cars removed, leaves picked up, trash picked up (all these functions seem to be oursourced now, so AIMCO can say they're not really responsible when the job isn't done), garbage rooms emptied daily, balconies that aren't rusting apart and in danger of falling off, a parking lot that doesn't flood into the building (OK, they did take care of this after it became bleeding obvious it was a recurrent problem, but even there they did a slapdash job, removing a good tree and leaving a muddy spot on the ground that the city arborist says they should have taken care of by now), and generally much more responsive management. Getting anything other than the most utterly basic maintenance seems to take pulling teeth and going through AIMCO's regional manager, and even he's becoming obdurate. About the only things this place has going for it now are the large apartments with much storage (even if most of it is in the basement which is still damp and prone to flooding) and good location close to major highways, beltway, metro, buses and center of Falls Church city. My theory is that they're glad to take money on the place now, but are really planning on razing or gutting the place and building a high-priced, unaffordable "luxury" building on the land. This used to be a place where the now-retired folks who came in with the building could feel safe and looked-after; now the clientele has gotten rougher and the lease terms much more punitive toward the tenants. If you don't have to live here, don't move here; you can do better.

User Responses
From: mizcathi	Date: 04/06/2005
I'm planning on moving here and was excited by the location, size of the apartment, and storage. The vacant apartment I saw was older, but nice. Now I'm not so sure. It's 2005 and the utilities are included - the girl at the desk said that the building is of concrete construction and nobody complains about noice. Sure the place is "older", and that didn't bother me, but now I'm scared to proceed.

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