Element Studios

Great place to live. Clean and modern inside of the units. Relaxed and friendly management. I definitely feel at home here. One of the best places to live in regards to location and price!

I think this place definitely needs some more up to date reviews. My girlfriend lives here and when we read the previous ones we were shocked, granted, they were also all 4 – 5 years ago. I’ll give my quick take on her experience, the moving in and living here. The place was very clean and has great new counters, appliances and whatever but the really cool part was the rainfall shower! Oh, and the pool, but that’s for another day. Or maybe just another paragraph. There was a few very minor pre move in things she wanted done, like wanted a patch of wall above the door that in the right lighting you could see it needed an extra coat. Everything was done in a reasonable amount of time. The AC has never broken nor has anything else since she’s lived here. The neighbors are really nice too. Many of them offered my girlfriend to check out their places for decorating ideas and she’s always having a beer or dinner parties with neighbors.
The park right by the apartments is where Austin Sports and Social Club meets to play kickball and stuff so if your new to Austin its a great way to meet people and not worry about drinking and driving home, you can just walk!

I think this place deserves a raving review especially since apparently it had poor managment in the past that have screwed up the ratings. I don’t know anything about the manangement in the past but I know the managment now is super nice and helpful. Plus they do cute meet and greets every now and then and provide apps and beverages just so people can get to know their neighbors.
I began living here at the end of July 2014. I have had nothing but a pleasant experience! I am finally living in a place where I feel like I am getting what I am paying. If you have leased a lot in Austin, you know that most places charge a high price and don’t have to update or maintain their properties because places anywhere near downtown get leased with or without proper maintenance.
Not only are the insides updated/​aesthetically pleasing, the grounds are always kept clean. The pool rarely has a single leaf in it (even during the winter) and trash is never a problem.
The shared laundry facility is great (I was a little skeptical at first about not having my own washer and dryer) I have never had to wait for a machine and they have never been broken or anything since I have been here! Occasionally I have left my clothes in a machine for a couple of hours while I went to workout or something and have never feared that they would not be there when I returned.
Which brings me to my next topic– security. I have never felt unsafe, even when I go run late in the evening by the nearby park. I have a table and chairs set outside of my door that could easily be stolen but they have never been touched.

okay, so — update time!
happy to report that, since my original, not-​too-​happy review of the element studios, things have actually improved — YAY!
new person in the office who is super sweet and actually gets things done, and takes requests/​concerns/​suggestions from tenants seriously.
new maintenance guy to help out — just as nice as our original maintenance guy, who is also still here and still as great as ever.
because of a combination of the above two improvements, maintenance requests are handled MUCH faster, which i’m sure is greatly appreciated by all.
got my interior lock, so that’s gravy. everyone has received the gate codes for the 2 front gates, an improvement from my last review. (one of the other 2 gates is still broken, and no one seems to know the code for the last one, but i’m trying to stay positive here, people.)
there ARE still some issues, but these mostly have to do with the fact that, while these units have been given an extensive «facelift», the guts of the buildings are just really old, (i.e. issues with how the original plumbing was done., etc). not management’s fault, and only so much that can be done to fix it. (that being said, maintenance has been making a sustained and valiant effort to get things fixed, so that’s something, anyways.)
overall, there has been significant improvement since my original post, and that is just super. good stuff, good stuff!

I’m about to tell you every reason why you should not live at Element Studios. There are no reasons to live here.
My AC has broken every warm month since my lease started. I have had well over 30 days without AC since moving in. As I’m writing this it’s over 100 degrees in my apartment.
I had raccoons in my walls/​ceiling for about a month — a month where I had no sleep because of this.
Eventually management tried removing raccoons… by putting cans of sardines in my ceiling. Of course my AC went out during this and then I had hundreds of flies and bugs in my apartment from the rotting cans of sardines left in the ceiling at 100 degrees weather, taken by the raccoons. The raccoons were never caught — they either died inside the walls or escaped.
My closet and bathroom smells like rotting sardines ever since. It’s exacerbated when my AC goes out every other week.
In the month of June 2012 I have had my AC go out nearly every weekend so far. It’s 105 degrees outside. Consequently, three of my fish just died due to the water temperature reaching over 90 degrees. Do you know what it’s like to try to sleep when it’s 95 degrees and you have work at 8am? Live here and you’ll find out.
A couple other things: during winter I did not have any hot water until spring since all water is managed by the property and there are no individual water heaters for each apartment — and now that it’s summer and have no AC, I also don’t have cold water for more than the first 20 seconds.
A few more things: While in no way the fault of Element Studios, it’s important to know that there are currently 3 large construction projects within 1 block of where you will live. A massive new complex is being built directly next door and construction crews start at 6 am, constantly block the street access to the apartments and have completely caked the roads in dirt and mud, effectively ruining the paint job on my motorcycle and not fun to ride bicycles or walk through. The park next door is under construction and Oltorf will forever be a single lane road under construction… sometimes takes 5 – 10 minutes just to take a right turn out of the neighborhood.
I wish I could give this place 0 stars. They are overpriced and don’t even offer proper livable conditions.
I will say that part way through my lease management changed and the new on-​site manager is extremely nice and sympathetic and always trying to help, and an on-​site maintenance man was hired which has helped with many problems. Regardless, there still seems to be numerous issues with these apartments that need to be addressed.
Here’s videos of raccoons in my AC ducts /​walls:
These are just some of the dates I’ve complained about my AC not working:
09/​26/​2011 (move in day!)
10/​18/​2011
04/​02/​2012
05/​04/​2012
05/​28/​2012
06/​14/​2012
06/​22/​2012
Here’s a photo of my thermostat stuck at 99 degrees:
Here’s a photo of my aquarium thermostat not even registering the temperature at 90 degrees:
Here’s a photo of one of my dead fish due to too hot water temperature:

Wow! I’m really shocked at the negative reviews. Just to Clarify, these negative reviews are written from tenants leasing. My family member owns a condo here, and he has little to no problems. He has not had the issues with the A/​C or water issues, and he even has a stackable washer/​dryer in his unit. No problems with washing clothes or washing dishes.
The positives of this community are that it is on a quiet street, allowing for privacy, and there is a nice park next door that we go walk our puppy The reason for my 4 star is that the complex is still «unfinished» after all of this time.

Let me start by stating that these apts have been beautifully renovated and the clientele that have been attracted to sign leases here are great people, some of my best friends. Though outwardly appealing these apts may be they have SO many internal problems with mngt. The hot tub (which was never maintained) was locked up to never be used again as a ‘punishment’ because it was broken. Also sign a lease here if you enjoy only a luke warm water temperature (there is NO cold or hot water), and if you like having to call maintenance on seemingly a monthly basis to fix your A/​C because it will stop working guaranteed. If that doesn’t tantalize you enough there is a wonderful man that lives upstairs and deeming himself as the «owner» and «manager» numerous times, only to find out his daddy is friends with the actual owner and is only supposed to ‘maintain the grounds’, will knock on your door and accuse you of dumping cig butts on his doorstep and tell you to tell your friends to pick up their dog feces. Lastly if you aren’t completely appalled yet, you will come home to find everyone’s lawn furniture locked up in some storage unit with out anyone’s consent because they don’t want anyone having furniture outside. I thank god that the idiotic mngt forgot to put a lease term on my agreement so making me month-​to-​month I will be outta here very soon.

The community in this place is great! Something I would compare to «melrose place» without the drama, only love. It’s a shame that the owner and management of this place is terrible and all of the tenants are packing up and moving as soon as their leases run out. So, unless you like to sign a new lease addendum every few months changing something on the agreement that you already signed after committing to 12 months… or if you are okay with being promised amenities that do not exist… or if your okay with your personal property being stolen off your front porch and locked in a storage closet… and if you don’t enjoy being accused of destroying property (the Hot Tub) when there was never anyone to maintain it… then this is the place for you. But if they ever do take the lock off the hot tub and fix it, then make sure you know how to clean and shock one, because you’ll have to do it yourself or it will never be done. I am writing this because I hope that they will read it and make some changes for the better. Especially since «phase 2» across the street will be opening up to renters soon. It really is a great place with an awesome community, I would hate to see a place with such potential be ruined due to poor management.
I would like to ad that they have started moving people into phase 2 as of October. They are completing units one at a time and moving people into them as they are finished. So if you lease there, you are living in a dangerous construction area with workers on the property daily, an empty pool with no lights or fencing around it, open units/​work areas, and an unlocked fence that anyone can go into.
The quite street as one user called it (who does not live here), is also very dangerous due to the construction and poorly lit roads. So dangerous in fact that a female tenant was robbed at gun point. And with several requests to have our fences locked, they still remain open.
Communication between the management and tenants is very poor. And they do not respect your rights as listed by the Texas Attorney General under consumer/​tenant rights. Overall, this place has so much potential, but it would be a mistake to rent here as of now.

I have had a horrible experience with leasing my apartment at the Element Studios. While they bring you in and show you a beautifully renovated apartment with new furnishings, etc. they do not share with you that the management company is extremely unorganized and now I have had rats in my apartment for 5 days and they are just now coming to «set out traps» as the exterminator is «on vacation». While the rent is affordable for what seems like a decent place to live near downtown – I would not go through the hassle of getting locked out of my apartment on the first night because they didn’t give me the correct key and having to wait for over an hour to have some come let me in so that I could allow the movers to move my stuff in, then waiting over a week to get my mail key, to now having to wait 5 days for them to fix the RAT problem and I’ve only lived here just over 1 month! I would never recommend this as a place to live to anyone I know and I’m hoping you can avoid the mistake I made!