Located in "The Lakes", a mondo-complex of complexes of apartments, condos and small yuppie-palace homes just West of downtown in Kent, WA. If you're going to live in the Kent valley, The Lakes is the place to be ... relatively quiet and away from the busier downtown traffic areas, kind of a pseudo-cul-de-sac thing, albeit a large one. Nice 1.5 mile loop around The Lakes with bike lane w/not much traffic, easy access to Green River Trail and Interurban Trail (for rollerblading or more biking).

In Summer 2001, the construction issues were annoying. The balcony renewals took forever and they wouldn't schedule when the crew would get to each apt -- if you wanted to plan a backyard bbq party, you were SOL, because your patio might not be available on the date you chose. The pool opening was delayed as well. IMHO, we should have gotten rent credits for inconvenience. They're still working on a new complex picnic area as of January 2002, I think. If you are moving from back East, be prepared -- WA state exhibits a ridiculous lack of urgency regarding completion of construction projects compared to Texas and the Northeast, in terms of roadway improvements and building construction.

My friend who lives at this complex changed apartments recently and was hit with the painting fee, as another poster described. Don't know if it was in HIS lease, but it's not in mine and they'd better not charge me.

They've gone through any number of maintenance people in 2001; I don't know why. This might explain the irregularity of responses to maintenance requests.

I agree with the poster who said notifying people with a paper on their door is not sufficient. Several of us living at Island Park all work for the same company and we're frequently out of town. It's annoying to come back and see a note on your door saying, "Please move all your stuff off your patio by {day after tomorrow} so that we can work on it or we will trash whatever we find," and know that you had no way of hearing about this before it happened. An option to phone residents as well as leave notes would be appreciated, in recognition of the fact that there are a good number of yuppies who travel frequently living at the complex.

The indoor hot tub is often neither very hot nor very bubbly. They've replaced it at least once, maybe more. It still needs help. Tanning works great (and is usually vacant) and I've never seen more than three people in the fitness room.

On the quality of residents, if you want to see all yuppies all the time, try a luxury complex in Redmond. If you want to live in Kent, which is largely a normal working class town, trust me, I've done my research, The Lakes is the best place to be, and Island Park is the best value of the several apartment complexes in The Lakes.

Staff are friendly and polite. I think they're employeees of an offsite mgmt company that sets policies.

The geese do think they own Island Park. If you rent on the banks of the lake, inspect the ground between your patio/balcony and the lake carefully -- it's an indicator of how much goose, err, you know, you will get stuck with on your patio/balcony. This was much better in 2001 than in 2000, though.

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