Soma Apartments

I loved living here. Was a bit price per sq ft but the location is amazing, the staff are super friendly and the amenities are pretty good considering the size of the complex. The gym is a little small as is the garbage room but I try not to spend too much time in either.
Would have stayed here another year, if they had some two bedrooms available. I moved into Soma Towers, their sister property, last Friday and I see a lot of similar traits. Probably two of the top five best apartment complexes in downtown Bellevue.
I worked with Joan and she had all the answers and wasn’t into pressure sales. Really felt comfortable working with her.

Ryan B is obviously a plug from Soma. Ask any real resident and they’ll say this place is fester of problems.
First off, poor air circulation and temperature control problems. My unit was the PH which was beautiful and not even West facing. Now the problem is that they don’t have central heat or AC, you max out on a fan at 80 degrees and 60 degrees. It does more to cool your home than heat it, but that’s still not saying much. I spoke with the downstairs residents whom I ran into in the elevators, they say it’s not a PH problem, that they literally stay elsewhere and come visit their apartments to pick up clothes because it is so unbearably hot. Hey, on the upside the electric bill in the summer in under $ 40 but in the winter you pay $ 120+ upwards a month.
By the by, winter is unbearably cold. Buy electric blankets, a standing heater, glue yourself to a significant other, try to sleep in bathtub of hot water (desperation calls for desperate measures). Try a door slip, at least that’ll double duty and help keep control the influx of bugs that creep in. What did you expect? Open hallways means beetles, mosquitos, flies, spiders in SWARMS. You can literally see their dead bodies trailing in the hallways like fallen leaves.
Don’t count on maintenance for anything. Josh is a really nice guy but he left a hole in my bathroom door for a year after moving the laundry machine. Be your own handy man. Your requests will wait for weeks and weeks and weeks and magically be checked off as completed without the work being done, that is if you yourself don’t fix it first.
Joan the new leasing agent is also nice but she won’t check in your packages for days through the Soma website so follow your tracking code and pick them up yourself. My lease just ended which means I’m going through the move out fees which ended up being a tad over $ 1000. I love surprise fees. Who doesn’t? This is why I’ll save you the heartache and break down the cost to my unit 805.
Utility is always the same, my 1 bedroom averaged $ 130 a month, which I assume it’s just a shared fraction from the apartment and not your actual use. And I also heard the PH 805 is $ 2250 now? You pay $ 300 more than what I paid AND there’s no such thing as free parking. Even Bravern gives at least one free parking! So my guess is that your new total with one paid parking ($ 125) is $ 2,625 a month? Hey, if you are rich and like living with bugs in tundra/​tropical weather. Why not?
Overall, appearances deceive. Total internal dysfunction. This place sucks to all hell.

I have lived in SOMA for almost 2 years. It is one of the worst apartment I have ever been.
A few bad things, which apply to every residents:
1. Parking is very bad, very limited parking space, each parking lot is so compacted. Good luck.
2. No air conditioning. It is been quite hot in recent few years.
3. Very cold in winter, since no heat in the aisle and it is open space. It might look cool when you first move in, but after 1 month, who cares about the muddy garden on second floor.
4. Forget to mention, every apartment share the utility (heat/​water). Even if you live in a studio and didn’t use water and heat a lot. You pay 300 more (besides parking+rent) per month in the winter.
5. If your neighbor is cooking, you can guess what they eat.
6. You can hear the alarms of the whole building, if anyone not careful while cooking.
7. You can hear someone having sex during summer night.
8. Bad pipes, very easy to get stuck, just don’t use them.
Last is my personal experience:
9. If you ever want to move out, you will end up paying very large amount of money. I payed 1400 deposit for a studio and before I moved out, I spent quite a few days cleaning up my studio. (I have to admit I cannot clean it up as it was new). There are some hairs left around. The refrigerators have some smells. But it is still pretty clean. I would assume they took one/​two hundred bucks from my deposit to clean the rest up from my past experience. They charged me additional 600 bucks to clean up a tiny studio. Just one month before I leave, my neighbor (also a studio) left as well, I saw exactly how they clean up a used apartment. They hired an old lady to do the cleanup for a few days (from 8am to 7pm) and that is all. No fancy technology, no cleaning company, just an old lady. I doubt if she could clean up the apartment well and why they charged 2000 to clean up a tiny studio.
Now is the good thing I can think about soma:
1. Location is pretty good, there are quite a few restaurants. But with the same price, I am sure there are plenty of better places to live in Bellevue.
2. Leasing office stuff members are kind but useless. But they only work from Tuesday to Saturday 9:00 — 6:30. On Saturday, it is hard to see them, although it should be their office hour. If you get a package or need to pay the rent. Try to stay at home on Saturday to meet the stuff member. Who knows when they will be there.
3. By the way, they only take check and online payment, online payment take additional charges, I never used. Trying sliding your check inside the door, since it is so hard to meet them and good luck so they don’t lost your check. (They lost mine once.)

To be honest, I liked this place at beginning because of its great location and ended up with disappointments and terrible memory.
I was attracted by the downtown location and «cool» design. However, the design turns out to be one of the worst thing. The windows is only openable at the bottom, and allow you to have a tiny space for air coming in. Think about it, in summer, how hot this would be. Oppositely, the cold air is seeking in during winter. This is the main reason I decided to move out early even I have to pay a lot for obligating the lease.
As for moving out, here comes the big part. I moved two week earlier than the end of month, which provided a plenty of time for me to clean up my tiny winy studio. I spent two weeks, almost every day, cleaning the floor, bathroom and everything. It turns out that they want charge me 300 for full paint, even there is not a single stain on the wall, 183 for carpet replacement, 750 for the refrigerator and so many other stuff totaling for 1900. I guarantee that the refrigerator is performing well, and all they need is to spray it or clean it. Why they want 750 for it? Are they really buying a new one? If so, where the old one goes?
So guys, if you move to soma, REMEMBER TO TAKE THE REFRIGERATOR WITH YOU when you move out. They gonna charge you for that anyways. And TRY TO MAKE THE APARTMENT AS DIRTY AS IT COULD BE, because there would not be a difference even you tried so hard to clean it.
If you insist moving into this apartment, above are my suggestions and good luck.
FINALLY!
How unprofessional this team could be! On my final bill, the one wants to charge me 1900, the spelled carpet as «carrpet». Well, guess I am paying them to learn elementary spelling :)

Don’t be fooled. It is a pretty building, but the details were not thought through. We were the first tenants in one of the penthouses and it was not properly prepared for habitation. The vent for the cooking range still had the packaging cardboard in, so the fan would not take any steam or smoke up at all. The heater/​ac were not properly sized for the unit so it was constantly cold and hot depending upon the time of day. The 1 elevator was down for maintenance very frequently, so my wife was trapped with a baby carriage upstairs many afternoons. You can not even open the door to the garbage room, and it is grossly undersized. We ended up threatening legal action to break our lease early. O, I almost forgot about the fight in the elevator on St. Patty’s Day, blood everywhere. I would not recommend this building.

I have been living at Soma Apartments for almost 3 years now, and can honestly say it’s been one of the better places I’ve lived. Was surprised to see all of the negative reviews that have been left here.
Someone commented about poor layout and general design of the kitchen. Strongly disagree with this reviewer. Soma offers a unique and contemporary design, you will be hard pressed to find a place that is similar in look and feel. Lots of large glass windows, metal and exposed concrete. Personally I think it’s a breath of fresh air, however it will not appeal to everyone as some feel it is too «cold». Best recommendation here is to check out the photos first and see if it appeals to you. My particular 1 bed/​1bath floorpan has very open kitchen/​dining/​living area. I believe most of the units come with a large rolling/​movable island that matches the kitchen finishes. This has been a huge plus as it gives you a ton of extra counter/​work space and some added storage.
One of the more unique features of the building is what they call the «endless forest» which sits in the middle of the two halves of the building. This is a huge draw for me as it’s incredibly quiet and serene, and is a nice contrast between the industrial look of the building. Additionally, this allows quite a bit of light to penetrate though. In my case I actually get light from the forest side as well as the city side of the apartment. All of the glass that faces the forest is mirrored, so you can’t easily see in other apartments during the day. You can however see in at night, but most people close their blinds for privacy. One reviewer commented that the forest was a wet mess. Yes, this actually was the case as there were some big drainage issues. This has since been corrected and none of the issues are present. Landscaping was redone so it’s looking very nice again. Added bonus, in the wintertime they put up lights on the trees which looks pretty cool! There are two glass-​sided elevators within the building, which basically rise up from underground… this kind of presents a «wow» moment when the doors open to reveal the forest. This makes it interesting when having guests over, as it’s somewhat unexpected.
My only complaint is the fact that there is no air conditioning except for the penthouse units. I don’t know the reasoning behind this as you think it would be included in a new building. To further this the windows open in such a way that is not easy to use a portable air conditioner. I have made it work, but definitely not ideal. I know this is probably a deal breaker for some people… for me there are enough other pros to compromise. There was a reviewer that commented about not having window screens. I can honestly say that between DT Seattle and Bellevue I’ve never lived in apartment that has had screens.
Besides amenities, layout, finishes & building upkeep, one of the main reasons I’ve stayed this long is that I feel management does actually care about me as a resident. So many places I’ve lived I’ve felt and been treated like just a number. Yes, at the end of the day it is a business… but here management has always been incredibly respectful and accommodating. Josh the maintenance guy goes out of his way to help with packages after hours, even when he shouldn’t have to. People always seem to complain about rent increases. Yes, it sucks and no one likes to have to pay more… but again it’s business and that’s the way it goes. One thing I’ve found at Soma is if you actually sit down and talk with management, they will often try to reach some compromise with you. Most other places will not do this, I know from experience.

If you hear the name LC or anything related to Su Development, go away. Do not think much about.
This may sound funny, but the story below is God damn right and happened to me.
It all started when we rented an apartment through this nice lady, who is called LC.
She first said apartment rent is $ 2150 per month. A couple of days later, rent became $ 2250. We felt sorry, but we really liked the apartment. So we kept being interested. Then, she announced that the rent is $ 2350, plus $ 100 for parking and $ 125 for water. We should have stopped there and not rent the freaking apartment, but we rented it anyway. It didn’t take long to learn nobody is paying for parking spot (and probably for water) except us. They gave us only one spot, although park had two reserved spots for the apartment.
We moved into the apartment anyway. They didn’t clean it properly and there are lots of minor issues with the apartment (leaking faucet, dirty walls missing paints, broken bathroom door etc.) Most surprisingly that first night I realized the furnace was not functioning properly. It was noisy and not blowing hot air for sure. The next day we woke up to nose bleeds in cold, because the furnace worked all night and couldn’t warm up the apartment at all. I do not wait long and shoot an email to the lady and said the furnace is not functioning. She did not believe us. She offered portable heaters to get warp up in response. A couple of days later, their guy came and checked the furnace, said it is fine, but the thermosthat was not functioning either, which we learned some time later.
Not so long I went to bathroom to take a shower on the same day, but the water got cold quickly. I sent another email saying that the bathroom does not have enough hot water. She didn’t believe again.
After 2 – 3 misarable days, we decided to move out and told her, for which she didn’t respond for a while (that could be OK, because she was on vacation, but she could at least redirect our requests to someone else earlier). After insisting on, she redirected us to CS (Su Development). We were promised to get issues fixed, but still she even didn’t believe not-​functioning furnace. Anyway we started move out discussion, which was a long, frusturating process. C first asked us to find another renter, then we can move out. It was really hard to believe. They made us stay that cold apartment for a month (during Nov 15 — Dec 15).
After two weeks some heating company came to home to check the furnace and they simply said, this is not functioning. Furnace was older than me.
I have enough stories about these parties to tell you, believe me. It would fill the whole page.
Anyway long story short, we paid $ 500 HOA move in-​out fee, $ 500 deposit, $ 84 application fee, $ 2375 rent+water and got out after a month not counting the money we spent on movers.
When I went to Soma Apartments to give the keys back to L, she said one mailbox key and guest parking pass are missing, even though she promised to give those later, because she didn’t have them with her at that time.
So they are lyers, and they are after your money. It is not important whether you live under normal conditions or not as long as you pay the rent.

The layout is rather strange and poorly designed. Kitchen cabinets (if you can even call them that) are tacky and look cheap.
Everything inside is very small and there is no storage. Get used to having your vacuum cleaner in your living room.
The «Endless Forest» is currently a wet mess, with mud overflowing into the walking path. No screens on windows, so between that and the «Forest of Crud», you will be encountering frequent critters in your place.
Good enough if you are desperate to live close to downtown, but overall there seem to be more issues than positives.

Sent a contact request online and after a week — no response. I finally called and some guy answered. He was short and told me that there were no apartments available for viewing. When I asked — if I could still stop by to see the building, he responded with — the building will not give you any clue or hint as to what the apartments look like on the inside.
Moving on…