Renaissance Park Apartments

After seeing the generic response to my review a month ago I had to update things. Rent is going up by over $ 100 a month for anyone who signs up here, and in spite of the fact that I only signed my lease five months ago I am being forced to renew at a rate of $ 50 a month more immediately, or else pay the higher rate down the road. Today, my water is shut off again. I am growing increasingly frustrated with washing my hands with a Brita pitcher. It barely rained last night, and yet it seems like every time it rains they need to shut off the water to fix the flooding. They have yet to improve the situation about the bike racks all being exposed to the weather, and the overall condition of the landscape is really poor. The grass is full of hidden holes for your dog to hurt themselves, and the trees drop beer bottle sized pinecones on people and cars while their needles accumulate all over the complex with no clean up effort in sight. This place is not worth it. I already have several other places lined up so I can put Renaissance Park and First Pointe Management behind me. I like the staff here well enough, but they have just inherited a horrible complex to maintain and they work for an awful management group. They did go around hammering down nails after my last review, so I will credit them for that. However that isn’t enough to bring my review back up to two stars. It shouldn’t take that long for such a hazard to go unnoticed. If you’re thinking 19 reviews on Unilocal isn’t enough to persuade you against checking this place out, you are just like me and I look forward to seeing your negative review a few months after you move in.

The stove is so old it is rusting on the main top of the stove around the burners. The bathroom sink has a long scratch that is rusting. Lime-​away did not get rid of it.

I am looking forward to my lease expiring so I can move out. The main reason is that the 1 bedroom apartment was advertised as 675 square feet but it is actually 550 square feet. I only got 80% of the apartment advertised– I wish I could only pay 80% of the rent. I feel very taken advantage of. The 1 bedrooms were not available to tour when I signed the lease, and perhaps its my mistake for trusting them, but a 550 square foot apartment is completely different from a 675 square foot apartment. My square foot measurement does not include the patio because outdoor spaces are never included in square footage. Perhaps their 675 claim includes the patio? If any of my neighbors are reading this — how big our your apartments? I assume that we have all been deceived?
The show apartment also had lots of features that my apartment doesn’t have (i.e. sliding bathtub/​shower door). There is no built in light in the bedroom or living room (there is a huge ugly fluorescent kitchen light) but due to possible asbestos they are very strict about no holes in the ceiling which means that it is completely impossible to light the apartment adequately. The kitchen is so small that it is practically unusable. The built in table means that you can’t arrange furniture in a way to add kitchen storage. I was also told that there would be laminate flooring throughout the apartment but the bedroom is carpeted. None of these are deal-​breakers for me, but it does mean that I think the price is too high for the apartment.
Parking is a challenge, especially at night.
The maintenance staff is friendly and very responsive and the apartment office staff is always friendly. I have no complaints about the people who work here except for misrepresenting or lying about the quality and size of the apartment.
The location is great and it is generally a quiet and peaceful place to live, which is why I have given it 3 stars. I would have been happy with this complex if it was the square footage that was advertised.
I feel deceived. I’m now going to bring a tape-​measure with me when I tour apartments.

Overall Renaissance Park was a decent place to live for the price.
Pros:
— The staff in the office are kind and professional.
— Maintenance requests were responded to promptly (maintenance staff are great too!)
— The location is great! Easy walk to Safeway, easy bike to campus. Quiet neighborhood.
— The pool and gym are both well maintained. The BBQs work well but they could be cleaned more often.
— Patios :)
Cons:
— The windows are single pane glass. They do not insulate sound or heat well. They also sweat in the winter.
— The air conditioners outside the bedroom window were super loud.
— The laundry rooms are run by an outside company and they would break often.
— Parking spots can be hard to find on the south side of A building, especially later at night. The street parking would be full too.
— Not much sound barrier between apartments. We could hear our upstairs neighbor’s phone vibrate. We could hear them open dresser drawers.
Comments pertaining to other recent reviews:
*Our water/​sewer/​garbage bill was about $ 40 – 50 per month on top of rent
**We had more taken out of the deposit than expected, but it was fair. Nothing crazy at all.
***Yes, there are some weird people. One guy would watch people work out in the gym. Creep!
****The appliances are older but they work well enough. I have had much worse appliances in other «college student» housing.

Creepy people everywhere. There is a need for mental disorders in addition to background check. Too bad we don’t have the technology. There were cars broken into while I lived there. The whole place seemed lack of life. Not a happy homey community to live in. Plus, it’s tooooo far away from everything. Say no to dat apt!

Avoid if you can! Be aware of unexpected charges with no logical explanation. I lived here for a year and faced multiple problems in this facility for example multiple water outages during the year due to bad plumbing and also very old appliances in units. I had to call the management office every once in a while to send someone to fix different things. Everything gets broken easily and they’ll charge you right away!

Renaissance park has been a very pleasant place to live. All the staff are extremely courteous and clearly want to help. The community orientation is very nice as well, Erica and Bianca, as well as the newer staff are always organizing events to help neighbors interact positively. This is a good place.

Update:
Now they have granted me permission to have Blakes come out and do the inspection. They tell me that Blakes is on their vendors list so I tried to have them pay for the second opinion from one of their professional technicians but they said they spent alot of money to have one of their own to be certified to do the a/​c work.
You can’t pay for experience! You have to earn it and to earn it takes lots of practice to get it right. So just because they got one of their guys certified doesn’t equate to resolving the issue at hand. Would you go for the newly certified tech or a certified tech with many years of experience and with the backing and support of a well established company to do the job?
I also would like to take issue on our monthly utilities bill.
From last June 2014 to present we are now paying over 100% for our waste water bill. we were paying back in june $ 10.40 and now it is $ 20.49. I asked management why the 100% increase and I was told that they were paying 50% of the total waste water bill while the other 50% was shared from the rest of the tenants and that they (owners) now have decided to pay only 20% of their share this is why the increases are happening.
It would have been appropriate for management to explain these cost increases in a letter to each tenant so that I and many others aren’t left in the dark and I would highly recommend management/​tenant meetings each month to explain and work out issues that come forth.
My final conversation on this particular matter was as she stated…“if you don’t like living here then maybe you should think about moving…” As I was about to give my opinion on that statement she hung up the phone on me.
Am I pissed and disappointed? Yes.

I’m writing from the perspective of the family member of a renter who lived at Renaissance for two years.
The management office/​clubhouse and the sample apartments are MUCH nicer than most of the actual ones, very misleading.
Te reviewer who said the apartments are dated is absolutely correct. Kitchen appliances are quite old and chipped, the cupboards have so much paint they don’t all close. The counter tops are old and dated as well.
The bathrooms have fiberglass tub surrounds that flex when you use the shower/​water faucet. Over-​paint on all the doors, drips on the walls and around the vanity. Very Dated.
The carpets are worn, edges are covered in paint (I actually trimmed off some of the paint with a small scissors before my family member moved in.)
The laundry facilities are TERRIBLE. Machines are often not working, and there aren’t enough machines for the number of tenants. Tenants who leave there clothes in the machines for hours on end without thought for others is a major problem. In addition, although it’s been reported many times, undergarments are being stolen! (Sitting in a small dirty room in the heat of summer or cold of winter to ensure your clothes are not stolen is ridiculous.)
Furnace in the hallway is VERY loud. Better outside lighting is needed as well. Communication from management about rent increases, repairs, inspections, etc. is POOR.
Would NOT recommend in its current condition.

I write this review living here for about two years. I’d noticed that there are almost no reviews written in recent months, so here’s mine.
Almost all info we were given at lease signing was false. Among other falsehoods, we were most upset to learn we were mislead about the costs:
1. We were told the complex works very hard to avoid rent increases. This is FALSE. We will have seen the rent gone up TWICE already since moving in. Now up $ 120 per month since move in.
2. We were assured that the costs for various utilities such as garbage and water service stay around or below $ 15 per month per apartment. FALSE. This amount has been exceeded many times, up $ 50 per month.
3. We were promised renovations to the apartment, a sort of reward for being a loyal and long stay customer. Cabinets, carpet, and window replacements to name a few. FALSE again. We have received none of these despite being on-​time paying folks over multiple leases.
*I would like to say the maintenance people are amazing professionals though, who respond promptly to any pressing issues such as heating/​ac issues.
I cannot recommend living in Renaissance Park or any other apartment owned by First Pointe Management Group. They accept no responsibility for any of their promises made in the «clubhouse», and can’t wait to get off the phone when you call the home office. Don’t believe them when they say you should sign their lease NOW since they are at «full occupancy» (I assure you there are empty apartments here).
The people you meet at the clubhouse are nice, but they always quit their job quickly after your conversation with them and you’ll never be able to hold them to their word. The apartments are old, and the window panes are so bad that our energy costs are VERY high living here. If you are a budget conscious person, do not be fooled by the «below market» price they claim here. You will end up paying higher costs per month compared to other places, they will deny this at the leasing office, but its just a fact. And above all else, this is not an organization you can trust.
UPDATE: Have reduced my rating from 2 stars, to 1. You may have noticed a very corporate response underneath my review. A response that does very little to address the grievances posted. However I would like to respond to their response, in particular 3 parts.
1. «We train our team to be knowledgeable when talking with prospects and residents about the cost of maintaining a home, including utilities, and annual renewals»
This is open to debate, and misleads the reader. Did you not read about all the misinformation I’d been given at move in?
2. «The prices for utilities at Renaissance Park are not much different than one would find in any apartment home community.»
This is blatantly false, in fact we have found two prospective apartment communities in town that have vastly different pricing models, like Stonegate.
3. «we do hope to bring renovations to the homes in the near future!»
Although the exclamation point excites me, this is among one of the many promises we have waited multiple years to come true. Near future is an impressing vague statement, and lacks any hint of accountability. This organization chooses its words very carefully, so be sure to read between the lines.

I lived at RP for over two years and continue to go there often to visit friends so I know the complex really well and I went through two or three different managers. Everyone renting or thinking about renting should know that the apartments are extremely dated. The kitchens are honestly sad. The cupboard doors don’t event close properly and most drawers are misaligned. The windows are single pane so you lose a lot of heat in the winter. The walls are stark white which makes the apartments look cold and uninviting. The seals of the windows are so so dirty full of spider webs and maybe even mold, and that used to be how you get the apartment. Also the caulking in the bathrooms is of super low quality and poorly done so water filters everywhere and sometimes damages surfaces. The doors to the closets are super old, have been repainted a million times, and they roll weird because there is sticky stuff or paint that dripped on the rail. They also have these poop baggies dispensers all over the property but they never ever ever refill them. You can live there for years and your apartment will receive no maintenance, they will also raise the rent on you every time. They leave these notes taped to your door which is super tacky and some people don’t pick them up for days. The pool is not heated so you can only use it in the summer when it’s really hot otherwise the water is freezing. Management is so so disorganized it’s honestly funny, they have a problem logging maintenance requests all the time and always get the apartment numbers wrong. Now for the good things: the neighborhood is unbeatable, neighbors are decent, it’s mostly quiet, there is a lot of parking, the club house and the grills in the pool area are great. It’s not a horrible place to live but because the apartments receive zero maintenance and everything in them is so old I give them two stars. For what they charge they could update the units a bit.

Unfortunately, I am a current resident at Renaissance Park Apartments. I have been living here since April 2012. I stupidly resigned my lease over the summer to extend until August 2014. I resigned only due to not wanting to deal with the stress of moving but I definitely regret that decision.
I will begin my review on the management staff. The maintenance guy is extremely nice and friendly. He is efficient and always says hello to residents. The office staff on the other hand are the worst crowd of people I have ever encountered in my life. This is not an exaggeration. My friends, boyfriend, and I have tried to hang out in the nicely decorated lobby on several occasions but were greeted with hostile attitudes, tension, and glares. You can tell they didn’t want you there. Although their guest house has many televisions, a pool table, and even a game room, no one goes in there due to this negative environment created by the staff. I wouldn’t suggest going in there unless you had to make a payment or request maintenance services. For people who have a job revolving around customer service, the staff members are incompetent and not trained. Based off of many personal experiences, if you need help or there is a misunderstanding with rent, the apartment office manager will talk over you, interrupt what you’re saying, and treat you like you’re stupid. If you ask her to stop interrupting you so you can finish what you’re saying, she will call you rude. If you want good service from her, just ask her what her supervisor’s information is. She will immediately begin being nicer to you.
Also, although the apartment guest house and pool look nice, don’t let that fool you. The inside of these apartments are old and have a lot of problems. I have to call maintenance once a month to fix something. The garbage disposal, toilet, shower, and air conditioning are constantly breaking. They don’t do anything significant to repair these issues. Only temporary solutions. There is also an issue with the water line at these apartments. They always have to do some kind of work on it causing the water to be turned off a couple hours on several occasions. Very inconvenient. The paint they use on the inside of your apartment is a matte white meaning that it gets stained and marked easily. Good bye deposit. They do this on purpose. I understand that these are older apartments but just be aware that the kitchen and bathroom cabinets are also painted so much that some drawers are impossible to open due to all the layers of paint. The kitchen is already small with little storage space. I am unable to use half of the drawers.
Although I have not completed many reviews on my Unilocal account, I choose to only review an establishment if they have done something very wrong to me. Please keep my review in mind before deciding on signing a lease here. Don’t make the same mistake I have made. Although they try to get you with their amenities (pool, small dirty gym, guest house, and game room), please realize that you won’t feel comfortable enough to use them.
UPDATE 1÷29÷14:
If «thorough and regular maintenance is an important aspect of our responsibilities…» then please explain why the after hours emergency maintenance service is not efficient. I have NO hot water right now meaning that NO ONE can SHOWER. Hygiene is a basic human need. This apartment makes it unattainable. I called the hotline and the best they could do is submit a form. They don’t know the maintenance worker schedules so they can’t even give me an estimate of when someone could come over. I have no idea if I should stay awake and wait or if they will come another day. I’m completely left in the dark. I have no idea for how long I will be without hot water. I definitely don’t want strangers in my apartment when I’m not here. I don’t understand how this is an «emergency» maintenance line when they aren’t treating this situation as an emergency. My questions were only met with the answer «I don’t know». Are you serious?!
So I pay almost $ 1000 every month to live here. On top of that, they charge for water and garbage now. That’s a lot of money to be giving up to be punished with no hot water and water interruptions every month. It is ridiculous because I have to pay for all the water I am using to test to see if the hot water will finally work (which still hasn’t). I have to pay for this even though it is RENAISSANCE PARK’S FAULT. I wouldn’t even be mad if I was actually given answers when I called the after hours line. Why do I have to suffer and work around YOUR staff’s schedule when this is RENAISSANCE’S FAULT. How would you like it if randomly you can’t take a necessary shower after a long day and you need to look presentable for work/​school the next day?
I said it above and I will say it again… DON’T LIVE HERE. Please save yourself all the headaches and inconveniences. Learn from my mistake.

To establish my expertise on «Renaissance Park», I lived here for two years, in two different apartments. One right next to the pool and another by the dead end of Drummond.
Please don’t let the newly remodeled leasing office fool you. These apartments are pretty cheap and I will explain why.
There are rats/​mice having a field day in the attic space, and occasionally a raccoon or squirrel. I opened the heater closet to my cleaned (yeah right) new apartment and I’m not exaggerating, there was a solid inch thick layer of rat crap and pee and dripping onto the heating ducts. OMFG! So naturally, I hold in my vomit and march down to the leasing office. «oh, we will have it cleaned on monday» thats 4 days away! I had already signed the lease, so i was stuck with this recurring problem the entire year.
Squirrels mate in the attic space all right. you hear thump thump thump when you try to sleep. the pest control guy keeps telling them to trim the trees that touch the roof and they dont ever have it done.
Then I noticed the wall was crumbing behind the shower and toilet. After requesting it to be fixed for months (yes MONTHS) I looked pretty close and realized the inside of the the wall was coved in MOLD. I tell the office, what happens, maintenance come and just spackels over the rotting wall.
The AC can’t keep up with the heat and will cost you a small fortune to run daily ($ 300 a month) and both dryers i had would take three full cycles before it was dry a small load.
They turn off the water for hours up to once a week, the pool is cold, fitness center is tiny.
The only redeeming quality is the option of two bathrooms.

I commute to Vacaville for work and moved out to Davis because I felt that a college town would be safer place to live. And indeed turned out to be a great place. The apartments are dated but for the price, your getting a good deal. They have a decent workout center and a convenient location. Management treated me good, I reported a broken shower knob and they fixed it the next day, which was very nice. People keep to themselves and overall it’s a quiet place. Unfortunately, I’m getting tired of my commute to Vacaville but otherwise I would definitely continue living here!

I have two friends who live here, so I’m here alot kicking it and studying. My only complaint here is with one of the residents.
I was here one time studying with my friend late at night. When I arrived it was already really dark & the parking lot was pretty dim so it’s hard to see. When I saw a open spot, I pulled in. Before I left, I made sure it wasn’t a red zone or anything.
When I came out around 2am, I noticed that someone put a GIANT ASS ROCK on the hood of my car. WTF. apparently I didn’t park in a legit spot. But NO WHERE was a sign that said it wasn’t a spot. After I backed out of the spot and looked down on the floor REALLY CLOSELY did I notice a faint line. But still, in the morning and DEFINITELY not at night can you even notice it!
Even if I parked in a spot that’s not suppose to be a spot, couldn’t a note have been sufficient enough? Nope, you just HAD to leave a rock and push in all my mirrors? The sad part is I know who did it too. I wanted to just take that giant ass rock (which require both me AND my friend to lift) and chuck it at their car.
Oh and the managment kinda sucks from what I hear, part of the roof shingles fell off during a storm and landed on my friend’s car. When he went to tell the management about it, they said they couldn’t do anything because «it was an act of God». Well… maybe if you guys had nailed the shingles on better then God can’t knock it over with an itty bitty storm.

I love living here, I like that its not just another stucco apt building. Everyone is so nice and we can have our large dogs here!

I write this with much love for the people in the office. You guys are fine. The maintenance guy — spectacular. The location, great. Love my apt — no complaints there.
otherwise, there are some issues. My main issue is that, let’s be honest, who wants to hear a 1993 Fort Escort with the muffler taken off rumble into the parking lot at 3am and rev its engine? Me too, I’m telling you! That was my dream as a young child. Luckily it was also my dream that on rainy days everybody with a beat-​up truck tries to peel out on the wet pavement. Because, of course, if you don’t have an impressive ride, it’s always best to pretend that you do by peeling out when you have wet pavement. Oh, and remember to take the muffler off. The chicks dig that.
The place could use some community events — like parties or something. Apparently they used to have them, but are having budget issues, so not entirely their fault. Really though, arranging a poker tournament costs $ 0. There are things like that that would add a lot to the complex.
I blame these issues with the fact that this place is owned by a place called Capital Valley Investments. Really, anything called «(something-​something) investments» is probably interested only in the profit, and not the quality of living people have in their complex.

This is a great place to live! It is close to everything and you can always find parking. They have a nice bike trail near the back of the apartments and there are trees everywhere. It is usually very peaceful and quiet except when the landscapers come to do their routine maintenance. Management has always been very friendly and accommodating. The maintenance guy is awesome he knows what he is doing and has always been very nice to me. I would recommend living here it is less expensive than other places in Davis. It is not too far from downtown Davis and close enough to freeway access.

The place has the worst management I have ever encountered. After failing to communicate between them, 4 of the employees called me over a 2 week period to ask if I would renew my lease. I had arranged with the first caller to extend my lease since I did not have time to look for a new place and make that decision — I was getting ready to take the bar exam. After they agreed to extend my lease for a month, and after I made an appointment to go in and discuss my options after my bar exam, they kept calling!!! By the fourth caller I lost my temper, and I was a little short with the girl, begging her to leave me alone for the next few weeks. Well, the second day of my exam I get a voicemail from the fist person (the one who extended my lease and made my appoitment!), telling me that they need to have my decision of whether I will stay or move out BY THE END OF THAT DAY, or else I will have a notice to vacate on my door at 5 pm.
That was just the begining of it. In November they had construction that lasted 8 – 10 weeks, not the 2 weeks that they had informed us about. Worse, for two weeks they were working right outside my apartment, making it impossible for me to work at home. my walls were constantly shaking, and I could not hear anything, not the phone, not the tv… I asked for a refund on rent for those 2 weeks, but they declined.
I contacted the City of Davis because I wanted to have a medication session with the management by this point. The City requested mediation, but Renaissance Park declined.
There were many other smaller incidents, not to mention the numerous times they turned off the water, once 3 times in one week, and 2 of those days were without prior warning.
One of the current employees, Maricel, has been impossible. She responded to a concern letter that I had after they denied mediation. Well, she pretended to reply, because the answers she gave had nothing to do with my complaints. For example, I complained that there were too many «annual inspections» (I had 4 – 5 inspections in one year). She replied by telling me the importance of the anual inspection, and the things they look for on that visit. HELLO???
If you decide to live there, make sure you get EVERYTHING in writing, and keep all the notices they post on your door, like the water turning off notice. You can ask them to reimburs you for that day’s rent, and if they won’t, you can sue them.
I got the run around from their corporate office and it leaves me no choice but to take them to court for everything they have put me through.