Crystal Plaza

I am tremendously disappointed in the parking services at this building. Upon contracting with them for a parking spot for $ 110/​month, I supplied them with the make, model and license plate of my car. I was supplied with a paper hanging to identify myself as a daily parker. Due to the poor construction of the paper tag, they are prone to fall off the rear view mirror or and/​or rip. If this happens, as I learned yesterday, they will tow your car to an impound lot and you will incur a $ 135 fee. MThe part that makes it especially upsetting is that the tow truck supplies the parking concierge a receipt with the make, model and listen every plate of the car they intend to tow. The concierge could look up the information, but they don’t. I don’t think this is a nice way to do business. ANd I am canceling my monthly pass.

Words cannot express how disappointed I am with this place. Pros: front desk guys are absolutely awesome, and respectful.
Cons: we were not told this building houses students, which means constant partying, lots of smoking and you will not get any sleep. It is now 2:45 in the morning and there is seriously a bunch of drunk young men and women in the hallway partying like this is a college campus.
–This is not a smoke free building, so if your neighbors smoke it will come through the vents.
–I live on the top floor, and it is seriously 90+ degrees every day (keep in mind it’s November), the leasing agent mentioned it would «be a bit warm», what she failed to dies lose is that it is literally an inferno. I seriously have a portable air conditioner on as we speak.
— there is also constant construction going on, at 6:30 am you will hear constant banging… and on Saturday forget about sleeping in, construction starts at 7:00am.
–there is a strip club located right on 23^rd street, and if you are facing that area you will hear the constant fighting and police activity.
–speaking of police activity, there have been several instances when large groups of police officers are here, reason I don’t know; however, I’m sure it’s not good.
–they have a patio area for lounging and a grass area for pets. There is supposed to be NO smoking or drinking, however; it is a constant party out there. Many of the students sit out there to smoke and drink and get hammered.
–I use the pet designated areas as I have pets. It is however, dangerous because people congregate back there to smoke and drink and leave their lit cigarette butts in the grass, as well as bottle of beer. While I was out there a person from the 8^th floor threw something landing in my head. I quickly reported to security and they handled it. The manager called but nothing could be done.
Overall, I think the leasing should be more honest. They should have disclosed that this is practically a college campus, that it’s ridiculously hot at all times to the point where you can’t be comfortable, among other things that I will not post on a public forum. I personally do not recommend living here.

I have lived at Crystal Plaza for about 20 months in the north building facing the courtyard and pool. I gave the building a three because I see plenty of room for improvement, but the building carries my recommendation overall.
The rooms are spacious, clean, and though the lobbies are a bit 1980s ostentatious, they are always well maintained. They also have very large balconies that can accommodate plenty of furniture and guests. With some exceptions the folks that work here are very good, but sometimes they do appear understaffed. Their procedures for receiving, organizing, and notifying you about packages is an area that requires more attention. There are also a ton of college age kids in this building — foreign students especially — so there is a lot of cigarette smoking and general college shenanigans that happen here. That said, I was never disturbed by partying or smoking as were some other reviewers.
The location and amenities are very good. The pool is well maintained, there are big pet areas and recreation areas outdoors, and access to the Crystal City underground shops (chick-​fil-​a!!) and metro is very easy and close. Finding the building from the road is very confusing for friends and Über drivers, who get it right only about about a quarter of the time. Crystal city is very well located: it is very easy to access DC by car or metro, but the neighborhood is more corporate oriented. 23^rd street has some good bars and restaurants, but can be a bit sketchy at times (especially near the strip joint and ⁷⁄₁₁).
Maintenance crews were always responsive, and resolved all of our issues relatively quickly. We also had a washer and dryer unit installed while we were here. The work was done pretty well, but it took quite a bit longer to start and finish than I had hoped (about 8 weeks total, 4 weeks to start then 4 weeks of construction and waiting for the actual machine to be installed). They were brand new machines, very high tech. However, their location, fit and finish leave something to be desired. They were installed in the master bedroom closet (my roommate’s room) which made sharing with him an inconvenience for both of us. It sure beats using the common area machines, though. Those machines were also relatively new, but cost $ 2 per cycle and sharing with other residents left you at risk of having laundry pulled at busy times.
We did have hot water loss during peak showering hours at least a couple times, which was always an unpleasant surprise. To be fair they did have it diagnosed and repaired within an hour and a half, but not in time for a good shower. I have also noticed that the water temperature can vary significantly at times.
On paper, the price per square foot is amazing, but I’m not sure they deserve that much for the building. The décor is dated in the older apartments like mine with laminate counter tops and white carpet were hard to keep clean. They also have a pest problem, I have found baby cockroaches and ants in my apartment on multiple occasions. I have also seen some monster roaches downstairs, but I think they may have resolved the worst of that as I haven’t seen any large ones in many months.
They have been working to make incremental improvements, since I have lived there they have put tile in the basement, added some plants and installed sliding doors at the Crystal City Underground entrance. There is still more work to be done to compete with all the new construction happening just a few blocks over in Pentagon City.
The building can get incredibly warm as well, especially as they turn off the air conditioning very early. Winter 2015 was unseasonably warm, and because my south-​facing room got lots of sun, I kept my windows open all the time well into January 2016. Also, I get a ton of light shining into my apartment at night from the light posts in the courtyard, which some may find annoying.
One other complaint that I find to be unique to this building is that our Verizon Fios wifi can be painfully slow at times. I’m not sure if there is signal interference, over usage or what, but from 8pm to 1 am every night the Internet is slower than frozen molasses. Verizon deflected when I contacted them about it, and technically it does meet our internet package minimums, but continual buffering on Netflix and HBOgo is not ideal.
To reiterate, overall the building carries my recommendation, but there are significant improvements that can still be made. I am personally moving to a newer, smaller Apartment in Pentagon City when my lease is up.

I was drawn here due to the relatively low price per square foot. What the leasing office decided not to tell me during my walk through was that they are doing extensive construction throughout the building. It is a constant pounding, drilling, scraping, etc that is driving me absolutely crazy. Building management had no concern with trying to work with me to get out of my lease or do anything at all to help my situation.
I haven’t woken up to anything but extremely loud construction noises in 5 months.
Their parking setup is a complete joke. The reserved spots are insanely skinny, causing my car to get a giant dent in it the 2^nd day after I bought it. I had a guest get their car towed for $ 150 when we were a couple hours late to get home from a weekend trip.
The lobby puts your packages in front of your door for anyone to take (no security cameras in the hallways) if you dont pick them up within a day. They also do a terrible job of getting your packages to you the day its delivered. Amazon prime is useless here, because they wont give you your package until they feel like it.
The washing machine system almost never recognizes your payment card, and you are out of luck if it doesnt work because maintenance is outsourced for the laundry rooms. Clothes are wet? Too bad, theyll fix it in a couple days maybe.
They are constantly shutting off water and heating/​cooling to fix their old equipment.
They use the absolute cheapest materials possible. The brand new carpet in my apartment is crumbling 5 months in to my lease.
I really am not being dramatic by saying this is the worst place I have ever lived. I try to be home as little as possible, because its an absolute nightmare being here.

Overall CP has been a great place to live. Moving in was a bit rough. My carpets weren’t cleaned, the oven blocked drawers, blinds are disastrous, and more. It took over 5 requests to get some things fixed but even at that, my carpets are still disgusting and my blinds have gaps. However, those were surface things I could «get over» and record on my move in forms. It’s a smoking building and can smell like an ashtray in my apartment and hallway at times. Another downside is the lack of control of heat and AC. You can only control the temp and fan speed. The building decides when the heat and AC are on. Please turn the heat off!!! Other than that, living here has been pretty great. There are many pluses to living in CP. The coffee machine in The Den is heaven. Great pool and outdoor activities. The location is incredible. Close to everything. Victor is so helpful and he works his tail off. Mona (please come back) and Jill have been helpful with renewing my lease. Excited to be here another year.

I would love to give 5-​stars due to the friendly and helpful staff especially my leasing agent Solmaz and the other three leasing agents, Jill, Mona, and Mark who have all been very helpful with everything! However, I cannot since the original move-​in was not the smoothest and it does not happen often here — my situation. It is also something they could not control.
Other than that the place is great! The apartments are spacious, they have a concierge which collects packages and notifies you of their arrival, the location is great with a number of shops, restaurants, and the metro all in a short distance. The complex also hosts a number of different events to bring the community together. All these events are free such as Happy Hour and Breakfast once a month.
The people are truly great and very helpful!

I’ve lived here for 6+ years, and things have really gone downhill since the new management.
Pros:
— Walk underground to metro. Can’t beat the location. Lots of food options, very safe neighborhood.
— Comes and fixes things pretty quickly.
Cons:
— Laundry is obscenely expensive. It’s more than $ 4 to wash and dry one load of laundry.
— Mold. A few years back a whole wing of the building flooded, included my apartment. My master bedroom soaked in stale, black water for 2 weeks before they came by to do something about it. And by «do something,» they had a giant fan going for like 3 days, and came and cleaned my carpet. Requests to replace the carpet were ignored, even though it smells super musty and disgusting.
— They want you to give them 60 days notice before moving out, but they refuse to send you the renewal rate until like a week before your lease is up, giving you literally NO time to decide to renew or not. Was literally expected to renew or move out within a week, for two years in a row. Then they promise to send you a copy of the lease after you’ve signed everything, and they never do.
— Expect annual increases in rent from $ 150-​$ 300
— Right next to highway, and there’s an overzealous firetruck driver who likes the sirens on at 2am.
— The fire alarm goes off for no reason at least once every 4 months or so. Even the firemen aren’t all the concerned anymore when they come over to check.

My wife and I have been living in Crystal Plaza Apartments over 4 years and we certainly have NO regrets moving into the building. Yes, the building may be a bit old but the apartments are also bigger than many new apartments. We’ve had the opportunity to meet at least three apartment managers during our stay and can, without a doubt, say that Aaron Almanza and his staff are the best we’ve seen to date!
As soon as an issue is brought to their attention (e.g., gym equipment malfunction, spilled coffee in the elevator, etc.), they act in a timely manner to ensure the issue is resolved.
Aaron strives to be accommodating and makes himself available to answer questions and provide info. More importantly, he follows through and ensures the resident’s issues are addressed. To date, our experience with Aaron and his team has been nothing but excellent! In fact, because of our recent experience we’ve decided to extend our lease for 2 more years!

if i could leave no star i would.
First, this place is an ideal location. Situated minutes from Crystal City Metro, next door to National airport, gateway to DC.
Now about living here. My girlfriend and I are looking forward to leaving this atrociously managed establishment.
The office staff under the management of Wanda and Maggie was fully customer oriented. No problem an issue for them to handle, quick and efficient to respond, communicated what was happening with residents. Since Aaron Almanza has been put into the property manager role, the office staff have become completely none customer oriented.
What has enraged us recently is his decision not to properly use his front desk staff as concierge for package receiving. Packages are getting lost, being dumped in corridors because Aaron is trying to save a pittance by not providing his desk staff with some extra staff to handle package delivery and sorting.
Gates Hudson built a mammoth storage facility to store and keep packages for the apartments in an attempt to turn this old building into a modern one with appropriate services to go with the cost of renting here. We wouldn’t be whining about this if for the fact that we pay a fortune for the privilege of having our packages delivered and received by the front desk.
Aaron avoids residents, is hunched over his excel spreadsheets busy making his monthly sublets, ignoring existing residents needs.
I could go on with a list of other issues, rats, burst water pipes, etc. It is an old building. The maintenance staff shouldn’t have to do work arounds Aarons stupid cost saving plans.
If you want to suppot Aaron’s career, jump on board. If you want to live in an establishment that walks its talk, go somewhere else. Aaron doesn’t have what it takes to run a quality customer oriented establishment, and it appears, Gates Hudson doesnt care.

The leasing office is very disappointing. When I applied for 2 bedroom apartment, they were saying it is available on August 31^st, but 5 mins later, they said it is not available until September 7^th. And they said they could find me a temporary accommodation for free. But the person who is suppose to be contacting me seems forgot about it. She said three times she was going to call me and let me know, but she didn’t call me once! And she said in the beginning the temporary accommodation is free because it is the system error, but now they are going to charge me! I am not sure if it is because they don’t care about the residents, or they just have bad memories. The application process is very disappointing.

Some of my co-​workers and I used to live in this place, now we all moved out, for the following reasons:
First, I saw few rats in the kitchen, living room and my bedroom!!!
It totally freaked me out, so I reported it to their manager team.
And when they came, they blamed it on us! Saying we should keep our kitchen clean.
After that, we found out those rats came from the air conditioner vent.
The rats was gone after they put some rat sticker in the apartment. But 4 months later, we saw rats again, running all over the whole place.
Finally, the lease ended, and we asked the manager team to view our apartment before we move out. They claimed our kitchen and carpet is too messy and it will cost us over $ 4000 to replace them!!!
I was like this close to call to a lawyer, but my friends recommended me some local maids which only cost me $ 220 to take care of the whole apartment.
I just want to say, the location is good, but their management is a nightmare.

I’ve been at Crystal Plaza apartments since Feb 2012. Gates Hudson management had just taken over from ArchStone. They promised millions of dollars of renovations within the year. Here it is, August 2014, and they’re still not done with the renovations. They had asbestos problems, construction delays, burst pipes during the winter, etc. Set backs happen, but it hasn’t been convenient while living here.
Recently, management has gone down hill fast. The leasing office doesn’t keep agents for longer than a few months — and that alone should be a clue. The management imposes rules on a whim — despite the fact that it really can’t. For example, they’ve imposed an arbitrary rule that you can’t take wheeled carts on the newly renovated elevators. Not very convenient on grocery day and they don’t offer to help you carry your groceries up. Another example is that they tried to impose a rule to prevent people from wearing «pajamas or slippers» in the common areas. Sorry, but this is my residence and you can’t arbitrarily impose a vague rule like that. My last example of rules that make no sense is that during the renovation, they rebuilt the conceriege area smaller than it was previously. They then imposed a rule stating that packages will be sent back to the sender if not picked up in two business days — that’s fine if you’re not traveling for work. But who doesn’t order on Amazon anymore?
The parking situation is bad because of poor decisions by the management to make one entire parking level «reserved» spots. Well, the reserved spots sit empty because no one wants to pay the extra money for them, so the other level is almost always full and it can be very difficult to find a spot. Additionally, in their infinite wisdom, they decided to put handicap and reserved spots on the «non-​reserved» level. The management of this place is that clueless — since they don’t have to live here what do they care after all.
Recently there’s been bad rodent outbreak on the 12^th floor — where I live. Twice in three weeks I’ve had mice in my place. On the TWELFTH FLOOR! The roaches are always present also. They exterminators have come, filled holes behind appliances, and added insulation to the bottom of the doors recently because they are aware of the problem. I’m not alone, there’ve been discussions in the hallway on 12 that indicate others have mice and roaches here too.
The social setting is also a wreck. There are many apartments that have far more people staying there than are on the lease. There are hotcot apartments with flight attendants and there are apartments rented by university students that have way too many people in them. And the students tend to hang out in isolated groups and try to take over the common areas all the time.
So I finally have had my fill. I gave my notice to vacate. I thought I had 30 days, but I needed 60. And now I’m stuck paying another month at this dive in Crystal City. Oh, by the way, they replaced the first page of my lease after I signed it — you know, the page that includes the monthly rent.
If you’re looking for an apartment, go somewhere else and save yourself the headache.
One final note, I’m on the 12^th floor. And the window units NEVER get the apartment cool. I open the windows in the winter because it’s always so hot… If you need climate control, consider a unit that has it’s own heating and cooling system. They don’t turn the air on in the Spring until after it’s 90 degrees and they turn the heat back on in the fall while it’s still 90 degrees.

Although convenient to the city, not worth the high rent prices for mediocre service. The laundry machines are constantly breaking down, the gym is small, and the security lacking. The new management team is definitely not making good first impressions.

The only good thing about this apartment is location. It’s not worth the price. Have had nothing but problems with water backing up in all the sinks, bathroom above mine flooded and then flooded my bathroom. Now that there is new management, things have gotten even worse. Washers and dryers are always breaking down. Can’t wait to get out of this place!

The location is great. You don’t have to go above ground to get to the Metro. You can walk there in 5 minutes. The space is great. Tons of closets. Appliances are mediocre.
The problem is they raised the rent 30%. This is the second Archstone I have lived in and they do this every time. Archstone is a good community to live in, except for the rent gouging. You’d think they’d rather maintain their good tenants instead of having new people move in to every unit annually.

Just moved out of this place about a month ago. Overall the apartment was a pretty good place to live. The new management team raised the rent close to 10% so it was time to move on.
Pros:
I had a 1701 sq ft apartment. It’s massive, I’ve had over 60 people in this place and just about everyone had a seat. I had 5 sofas in the living room and space to spare. Before this I was in a 2300 sq feet row home, it seems a lot smaller than 1701 sq feet on one level. The gym is in the building, 24 hours a day, and rarely full. Tons of places to eat down stairs in the shops. Covered tunnel to the metro. Garage parking, close to mt vernon trail and national airport. I’ve walked home from the airport a few times. Oh and there is a non-​chain Thai restaurant downstairs, the owner walks around and talks with patrons.
Cons:
Crystal city is a concret canyon, after 6 pm most signs of life are gone.
The units don’t have washer and dryers in them, so I had to use the laundry room down stairs. The utilities are calculated pretty strangely and lumped in with the rent, you never really know how much you are using or paying for. New management team smiles and you and is pretty responsive, yet they’ve raised rent so much, every weekend there’s a few uhauls loading up on the loading dock. John McCain lives in Crystal City, when he eats at the Ruths Chris, there is a small army of goons clogging up the parking lot. They are pretty intimidating, they don’t smoke, talk or even move, they just man their positions and look around. They all look like agents from the Matrix.
I’d buy a place in crystal city if I had a traveling job, aside from that, go with Pentagon city, much more stuff to do.