So, I was looking for a place downtown and started to read about the Houston House apartments. Was wondering if anyone has any experience with this place? Ive read some bad reviews and good reviews but a friend of mine lived there for awhile and said it was good, but she was there only six months due to her job.
ryan17wagner is dead-on . . . Lofts at the Ballpark are where you should be looking. We moved from the Houston House to Lofts at the Ballpark, and the difference is night and day. It's more expensive, but Lofts is the nicest apartment I've ever lived in. Houston House is by far the worst. I'm going to quote a post I wrote about the Houston House for an apartment thread a few months ago. I lived there for 15 months. Last bit of advice -- don't believe ANYTHING they say. Not a word. I can't believe they're renovating, so at least something good seems to be happening, but my opinion is that there are problems with that building that their renovations won't fix. For instance, the parking garage is nuts -- I can't imagine they're going to do much there. The entrance door was broken probably 30% of the time. They said they'd get me a passcard for it, but it was months after I moved in until I got one. Seemed to be par for the course for many folks -- you just pulled up, honked your horn, and they'd come out and open it. A lot of times I'd just try to follow someone else in. The parking space I had was pretty decent, but there was some strange leaking next to it (I think it was the pool), and there was pretty much a constant pool of water next to my car. I ended up buying some concrete stepping stones and putting them next to my space, so I wouldn't have to step out of my car into the nasty puddle. The insides of the apartments will get better with the renovation. But the people at the front desk will have lots of empty promises, the roaches will probably still outnumber the people 50 to 1, the communication about building maintenance will be poor, the elevators will constantly break, the walls will still be paper-thin, and garage will still be sketchy.
LATBP is a great place. You might want to look at Midtown as well though, since it's basically the same proximity to downtown as stuff in EaDo. Once place I've been curious about is the Rice Lofts... anybody got the scoop on that place?
