Cherry Orchard

Six months in, we can’t stand this place anymore. Right now, at 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, we can’t take naps because we can hear: the neighbors’ kids screaming through the walls; people slamming things around and shaking the floors (we live on the top floor by the way); trucks unloading at one of the nearby businesses; motorcycles revving at El Camino Real; and our idiot downstairs neighbor’s stereo – which he plays at loud volumes all the time no matter how many times we complain. Luckily the guy who yaks nonstop on his phone on his balcony all the time doesn’t seem to be in at the moment (he has woken us up at 3 a.m. and before 8 a.m.).
This is no luxury apartment complex. SILENCE is the ultimate luxury. Recent renovations are just lipstick on an EXTREMELY NOISY PIG.

I recently moved in to the Cherry Orchard and so far have had a wonderful experience. Randy in the leasing office has been extremely helpful, very professional, and knowledgeable. He was able to answer any and all questions, very attentive to my needs in selecting the apartment that best suits my needs… On the move-​date it was unfortunate Randy was scheduled day off, so i had to meet Vanessa… it was kind of disappointing she was cold, unfriendly and never cracked a smile.
The maintenance staff have also been fantastic, very friendly and kind… I have submitted two maintenance requests they were both attended on the same day, which I believe is anywhere within 24 – 48 hours.
I have been living in this community for over 3 weeks now… Easing into this community has been very smooth and fun, have added pros and cons below:
Pros: Beautiful community situated in the heart of Sunnyvale and at a convenient location, close to Grocery shops, Sprouts, Macy’s, Target, down-​town. Love the community. Management, Randy is very friendly and helpful, he goes out of his way to help you out. The maintenance team is very prompt and get the work done within 1 business day. Beautiful interiors. stainless appliances, neutral colors. Lovely grounds with lots of landscaping.
Cons: The wall of the apartment is really thin that neighbor upstairs you can hear walking. The gym is a little small depending on your needs, it will be nice if they could have bigger TV screen. The rent is not cheap, but if you can afford it, it’s really worth it.
I’m very happy here and would definitely recommend this as a perfect location for an apartment in the bay area. I highly recommend living here if you are a renter!

Lived in Cherry Orchard for about a year. Overall it was a great apartment complex. It has a walk score that can’t be beat, and I survived, no, thrived without a car for 5 days of the week. Thoroughly miss the proximity to it’s namesake shopping center; more specifically Trader Joes. Total Woman gym around the corner, and Las Palmas park across the street. We rented a one bedroom, which was pretty spacious, comfortable and had updated contemporary furnishings.
Randy from the leasing office was nothing but helpful and professional. Vanessa on the other hand was cold, unfriendly and never cracked a smile. Maintenance was always very responsive. In terms of added fees. All I can remember is trash being $ 40 or so, and I dreaded going down to the recycle bins (located in the garage) — super gross stench a lot of the time.
The only real issue we had was with the jerk above us, which put a *major* dampener on our living experience. Every other night or so, he would wake us up — yelling on the phone to his relatives in India at 1am, 2am, 3am — it was ridiculously inconsiderate. We brought it up with management and they called him about it, but he only got louder, and purposefully so! We were offered another apartment in the complex, which makes a lot of sense inconveniencing the already inconvenienced (with another move). Basically management cannot enforce their ‘quiet time’ hours, so getting a good nights sleep is not guaranteed.
For the kind of rent they charge it was quite a disappointment. We did not renew our lease. I would’ve recommended this place if management did a better job at handling the situation, or if crazy upstairs had moved out before us.

This is a follow-​up to my 6÷1÷2015 review.
I just noticed someone from the apartments wrote a response to my review that said they talked to me about my concerns… that is not true. NO ONE has ever tried to talk to me about my complaints of Cherry Orchard and I’ve had the same phone number for 10 years.

Wonderful place! I’m Ina two bedroom apartment with 3 other guys and it couldn’t be better.
The amenities here and super nice and the proximity to everything in Sunnyvale couldn’t be better.
They are currently renovating a lot of apartments too, so it’s going to be better.
As far as noise goes, it’s very quiet. I’ve had to venture out to go to parties at other apartment complexes, but that’s not so bad.

An amazing place to stay! The staff is incredibly warm and welcoming. During our entire stay (1 year, 1 month) we loved loved our stay, super awesome & safe neighborhood. The maintenance guys were always prompt and actioned right away during emergencies. A perfect location to be– close to caltrain station, walking distance to grocery stores, restaurants. Seems to be pricy but worth every single penny, with everything within the apartment upgraded and the proximity to everything around you. Worked very closely with Randy– courteous, professional and one of the extremely helpful staff members
Reason for leaving: This place was very lucky for us and led us to buying our own home.
Totally satisfied with our stay at this wonderful apartment complex.

If it were not for the location this place would be vacant. People & staff are rude! Not pet friendly due to pet area muddy & filled with fleas probably due to the rats from next door restuarants And don’t think you will get any of your deposit back unless you show them you are not as stupid as they are. It’s sad to think staff even get paid

I wanted to say thank you for our new playground!
My kids love it and I no longer need to cross the street and go to the park, as we have a beautiful new playground right here.
A few month back, I came to speak to management in the office explaining/​requesting that something be done regarding the old playground instillation.
The old equipment was nice but the wood was old and the kids were getting splinters. I came in thinking that no way would they do anything as I am sure this is not a small task but I felt like I had to make my concerns (and other parents) heard.
The manager listened to me and to my surprise said she was already working on this and has a plan already in action. She was nice enough to even show me pictures and plans of what was coming.
Good to their promise, we got notification that the work was starting and within a week or so we now have a beautiful new playground for our kids that is a pleasure to use.
Thank you Cherry Orchard for listening to your residents requests and concerns and acting on them.
Good Job!

Just so to follow up with the management company’s comment. The gentleman did not have a private tour, if he had told me so, I would have gladly understood and left. Again, the office was empty with no guest. Your staff was rude and blunt. After his comment, he just went back to his office by himself. I even commented «your office is empty», and he said «I know… But.»
Excuse is not an option.

I’m floating my review between a 3 and a 4. 4 because the staff is actually good and take care of problems in a timely matter. I complained that there were no doggy waste stations and they actually listened and put one in! Never had an issue with getting maintenance out here. They were even nice enough to help my gf bring a package over to our unit that was left in the main office.
That said, the price is pretty high here and quite possibly the most expensive place in sunnyvale. However it’s in a very convenient location and completely walkable to everything you’d need.
The real issue with this place despite being higher end, there are some real ghetto people here. The upstairs neighbors kid wails like a dying cat. If he’s not crying he’s stomping in the ground non stop. Since I am living here temporarily, I had not made any fuss about it and decided to just suck it up. However I think in this case the parents should be conscientious about the noise their kids can make from the third floor. Also I frequently find dog poop on the cement walkways!!! Maintenance will clean it up right away because I do notify them when I see it. However once again, crappy people. It’s not hard to carry a plastic bag. Also saw a new Mercedes parked outside but someone had poured or spilled soda all over the side.
Tldr:
Good amenities, great staff, high price for convenience and crappy tenants.

Rented here for 2 years and the staff never changed. They don’t value their tenants, they’re pretty rude and stuck up. I can’t seem to understand why the attitude has to come along w the complex. :(I hope it changes but chances are it will not, they get their over priced rent and F U to the tenants.

I’m not one to normally take the time to log into Unilocal and write a review, but I feel I should for Cherry Orchard. Especially since all of the reviews below are negative.
Firstly all of the construction is done and the whole community looks great and is quiet!
1. Yes it is expensive. But if you take the time to look at similarly equipped places in the area, this is actually a great value. Prices in the area are all spiking and you must remember that this is a luxury property.
2. I’ve been living here at Cherry Orchard for 1 year now and honestly I grow more fond of it every month. My apartment is in the back corner of the property away from all of the streets, and it is extremely quiet. I leave my patio door open all the time and only hear the birds chirping in the tree’s outside.
3. The kitchen is FANTASTIC. Best kitchen you will get anywhere in an apartment. If you like to cook this kitchen is for you. I do live in one of the renovated units and they did a great job with the renovations.
4. The amenities are nice. The business center, the gym, underground parking. It’s all taken great care of.
5. The location is fantastic. I can walk to Trader Joe’s, Boudin, Habit, Panera, Chipotle, PF Changs, Safeway, 5 Guys, Pink Berry, Chic Fil A, Starbucks, Peets Coffee.
6. Plenty of parking. Always room for guests which is rare in this area.
7. All units have washer’s and dryers. Some units have large laundry rooms with extra storage. My unit has a full laundry room and it is wonderful. Separate side by side washer and dryer with plenty of room for extra storage.
Just 2 complaints.
1. This is the first Irvine Company Property I’ve been to where the clubhouse has to be paid for and reserved. This is very irritating as for what we pay to live here that should be included.
2. The gates can only be opened from the apartments when you have a home phone. Seeing as how I don’t need or want to pay for a home phone I cannot open the gate’s for guests from my apartment. I hope they fix this soon as it is irritating.

I have to say that living at Cherry Orchard has been the best rental experience I have had. Since I walked into the leasing office to view an apartment the staff made me feel at home. Everything here from the manicured grounds to the state of the art appliances in the apartment is first class. However, it was the staff that made the experience second to none, especially my leasing agent, Tanya Velo. She was courteous, responsive and went out of her way to make feel comfortable. She showed me the unit over and over again when I would come back after seeing another property to compare it. She offered to have the walls painted any color I wanted and answered all of my questions on the spot. This attitude did not change when I went home to make my decision. I was moving across the country so I had even more questions once I went back home to arrange my move and she continued to answer any question I had within minutes of me calling. Anytime I would ask her how to set something up she would typically say, «let me take care of that for you.» She walked me through every step of my move and in the end I had the most stress free move I have ever had.
The service did not stop after I moved in either. She continued to give me recommendations on local activities, places to visit and even where to find a dog. I felt like I had family out here even though they were all back on the east coast. The maintenance staff is also fantastic. They fixed even the smallest things the same day I put in a request. Everything is clean, safe, and it feels like a tight knit community at Cherry Orchard.
I would recommend living here to anyone. The property is in close proximity to everything you could want and the lifestyle is amazing!

Since my original review was filtered I have changed the number of stars to post. This should be one star only. Nothing I am saying is a lie… do not want others to make our same mistake.
We lived at Cherry Orchard for 6 mo and broke our lease early. While I don’t have many good things to say about living here, its only saving grace is the awesome location-​walking distance to many shops and a great park. On the negative here is a list of only some of the problems we faced in our short 6 mos:
1) Construction: Despite what management later denied to us, we were told upon moving here that the current construction with the constant jack hammering, dust flying and scaffolding would last 2 – 3 mo per building. Building 1 was still under construction 6 mo later. Even with the money they offer to knock off your rent during this time-​it is not worth it. Perhaps only if you are never home during the workweek ever, have no pets, and don’t mind not having use of your patio or windows for months should you even consider it.
2) Internal Noise: On top of the noise from the construction, the apartments are very poorly constructed and thus you can hear you neighbors nonstop. The dog above us never stopped barking. More annoying was our downstairs neighbor who constantly had his bass going to the point where our floor would shake. We complained many times both to him and management and nothing changed. Finally management suggested that we go down and offer to adjust his speaker volume ourselves… really? In addition, they are doing internal renovations so even 3 apartments down from us we could hear the hammering.
3) General Malfunctions: This is supposedly a gated community but frequently the gates did not work. Several times I was forced to park out of the community and walk in. The most egregious problem came at 1:30 AM when the fire alarms went off twice in one week-​the firemen (who were also annoyed) told me they had to totally deactivate the system after the 2^nd time so the rest of the night we did not have fire alarms.
4) Management: Horrible. They were unresponsive and unapologetic despite all of the above problems. Even after the fire alarm week, we never received an explanation or apology. Our overall experience could have been better if they showed even a little empathy for all the above problems.
Do yourself a favor-don’t even consider touring the place.

Terrible. Don’t stay here under any circumstances. Im writing this at almost 1am listening to very loud music from a party somewhere nearby. Have called security twice and they have done nothing. Im not a party popper but this is a Thursday night for gods sake.
Reconstruction is noisy and likely to last a very long time — we were told 2 to 3 months to complete the whole site when we moved in — almost 3 months later only one building is done. They are refurbishing apartments slowly, and you will be lucky to be offered a completed one. THose not refurbished — like ours — are old and tired.
In the meantime, if you aren’t in a building that is having the exterior repairs — with all its attendant noise, which is EXTREMELY intrusive — you are very likely to be in a building where they are refurbishing one of the interiors — and that is equally disruptive. The sales team blatantly misled us on the way in. Dog poop is everywhere — many residents just allow their dogs to use public areas and don’t clean up — there is no attempt to enforce sanitary clean up. We saw a dead rat near our parking area for 4 days in a row — no attempt to dispose of it. We are getting out next week and I can’t wait — this has been a really horrible experience.

This complex was constructed with inherent flaws that they are now correcting. Each of the 6 buildings apparently sequentially will have scaffolding erect around the entire building for 5 – 7 months (a construction foreman told me 7 months, the front office says it will be 5 months, and when has a construction project ever maintained schedule?) while they JACKHAMMER from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM on your front door, rear deck, and every where in between, then fix the problem and finally repaint the building. Then move on to your neighbors building. If you have pets, be prepared to come home to them highly agitated with accidents from the stress of the noise. If any in your household stay at home during the week, DO NOT LIVE HERE. If you expect to ever get sick and need to stay home durning the week to recuperate DO NOT LIVE HERE. If you work nights and need to sleep during the day, DO NOT LIVE HERE. DO NOT LIVE HERE UNTIL THEY COMPLETE THE MASSIVE RECONSTRUCTION which may be until 2015 unless they do more than one building at a time which is not the current approach. They will give you a rent discount during the time that your building is under re-​construction but it is insufficient if any living being in the home during the week. And I have no idea if they will give rent discounts when neighboring buildings are under-​reconstruction (they didn’t during phase one of the reconstruction 2 years ago).
If on the other hand you have no pets and are out of the home from 8:00 AM to past 5:00 PM this is a great place. The apartments are well designed and will have updated kitchens and baths starting the summer of 2012. The weight room and pool in the center of the complex are great, lush foliage, and fountains make this place feel like a resort (when not interrupted by jackhammers). Within 2 blocks of here are 3 great grocery stores, a drug store, over 10 restaurants ranging from fast food to very good sit downs, a comedy club, bar, PEETS and Starbucks. While security guards do walk the property at night there were a few break-​ins 2 years ago, so it is like any other suburban silicon valley complex where you still need to be somewhat vigilant. Underground parking and very responsive and courteous maintenance staff cap off the experience. So the convenience of urban living, in a resort setting at a slight premium appears to be their value proposition. Excellent place to live if your circumstance fits the beginning of this paragraph. It will be OUTSTANDING after the re-​construction.
Apparently the Irvine Company which manages Cherry Orchard Apts, has some clout with Unilocal and my original post was filtered. So I re-​entered it with 5 stars and the same verbage so you can hear the horrors…

These apartments seem to be geared toward transients: those who are working in the area for awhile — the feel here is international. The location is ideal for those who like to walk to places like Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, Border Books, the library, and Las Palmas park. They are located in a very busy area, at the cross roads of two busy streets.
The grounds are lovely, and well maintained. and the maintenance staff is professional, and very good at their jobs. The rent is steep, though, for the actual apartment interiors. They have very basic appliances.
Also to note — try to make a trip here before moving in with children or dogs — since there are so many folks living here (& in the area in general) from elsewhere, the general temperment to dogs is unfriendly (& some people are downright scared of any dog here — large or small!).also, if you have children, note that the language barrier can be challenging to those from areas who mainly speak English.
Lastly, do not leave any valuables w/​staff in the leasing office — though very nice people overall, I think the security there isn’t the best (we had a valuable stolen & no explanation given at all).
Rating reflects good walkable location, and tidiness of grounds, and professionalism of maintenance staff.

Parents have lived here for a few years. From the outside, its gorgeous. The amenities are top of the line, awesome pool, nice gym/​recreation area, and good security. The location is really what makes this place great. Walking distance to trader joe’s, with their own personal gate for Cherry Orchard Residents, and also walking distance to the shopping complex which includes great places like borders, chipotle, starbucks, pasta pomodoro, pf changes, etc.
However, on the inside the place is really quite average. A little bit more spacious than most, and pretty high ceilings, but appliances and all that is pretty average. The kitchens should really be upgraded from the bland white tile and mediocre appliances. Also, my parent’s current place has had some pipe/​water problems that the maintenance people have not really been able to fix for a long time. They are usually on top of it, but I’m guessing there is some major problems with the pipes that need work and they don’t want to invest the money. So just hope you don’t get a bad unit, make sure to check for water damage. You would think with the ridiculously high rent, they would fix stuff like that.

We spent seven months living here at Cherry Orchard… while my husband was on internship. My review would be closer to 3.5 stars…
The negatives: the apartments… unfortunately not too impressed with the finishes in our apartment… the bathroom feels a bit old in our unit and constantly dirty with the linoleum floors and the kitchen floor too… The previous occupants of our apartment I suspect had a cat and if we don’t leave the windows open you get this bad cat smell when you enter… and because it’s only a second floor unit it can be a bit of a dark dungeon at times but grateful when the temps are really warm that it does tend to stay cool. We were impressed with the finishes in the other Irvine Apartment Communities like in San Jose so wish they had put a bit more money on the interiors here.
The positives: the grounds are beautiful, the pool is nice, there is a great play area for children in the back (with a slide and grassy field), and my daughter loves walking near the fountains. The other residents are really sweet too, we had very kind neighbors and always ran into nice people at the playground. The office staff is friendly when we’ve dealt with them (although we did only get half of our deposit back because of the cleaning fees :-(, but they were very open when we moved in to expect that was all we would get back). And most importantly the location can’t be beat! We loved the fact that Trader Joes is the gate behind our complex (so plenty of last minute grocery runs), las Palmas park is right across from the complex (wonderful area for children and the playschool has programs for toddlers), and Borders/Starbucks/Peete’s/Walgreens/Sunnyvale Library and good local taqueria/​greek/​vegetarian restaurant and a host of other restaurants are within a really short walk as well (< 5 minutes). It’s only fifteen minutes to walk to downtown Sunnyvale with its great farmer’s market on Saturday and good restaurants as well and about a ten minute walk to the community center (where our toddler loves music classes and dance classes). So in short it’s an apartment complex to live in that is easy to exist without a car and make quick short errands… for this alone, we were really happy that we chose to live here.

I moved from Irvine (southern cali) to Sunnyvale 6 months ago. Hubby and I have been living in IAC apartment for 5 years and never ever had problem with the apartment or management.
BUT here in Sunnyvale it is quite different.
CON:
The apartment is not quite close to the standard back in Irvine compare to the price I am paying over here (and the rent here is ridiculous).
The office staff — most of them are pretty rude. They think they are something special because they work here. HELLO? this is just an average apartment complex not the Ritz. They usually have an annual review and I will make sure. that this issue will be known by IAC.
They need to improve otherwise the renters will stay out of this complex and I have been noticing many empty apartments here.
PRO
Very dog friendly — they even have their own dog park.
Great location — very close to all the freeways, and shopping center.
All in all… we didn’t have a choice when we moved because we didn’t want to break the lease and pay $$$. That’s why had to upgrade our lease to this apartment.
Once our lease is up we will move… this is place is definitely not worth the money to stay.