I moved into Crystal Towers in June 2017 and will ...

I moved into Crystal Towers in June 2017 and will be moving out in the next couple of weeks. I wanted to take some time and provide an honest review of the community based on my experiences over the past two years. Overall, Crystal Towers has been a great place to live, especially for young professionals working in Northern Virginia or Washington DC. I will list out some of the pros and cons of Crystal Towers below:

Pros:

1. Location - Crystal Towers is a 3 minute walk to the Crystal Towers Metro Station and is only two stops away from L Enfant Plaza. If you time it right, you can get to Nationals Park within 20 minutes. The Crystal City/Pentagon City neighborhood has numerous restaurants, grocery stores, shopping centers, etc. There is always something near by to satisfy your needs.

2. Apartment Size/Value - Considering Crystal Towers is an older building (built in the mid 1960 s), the apartments are very large compared to modern apartments in the area. In my two years, I lived in a spacious studio and a massive one bedroom apartment. Rooms and closets are very large and walls/floors/ceilings are very thick so noise from neighbors is always minimal. My current one bedroom apartment is around 1000 square feet with a massive balcony. I could see paying 2-3 times more for this floor plan in a new building or in DC.

3. Staff - Literally every member of the staff is extremely friendly, from custodial staff to maintenance staff, to the concierges and the leasing office. I want to give a special shout-out to Luana in the Leasing Office and Arben at the Concierge Desk.

4. Amenities - In the past two years, Crystal Towers has invested a lot in terms of updating the community s amenities. There is now a beautiful gym, an AstroTurfed dog run, and wonderful club room.

Cons:

1. General - The hallways in the community could use some updating. The carpets and walls leading to individual units are very tired and in many cases stained or scuffed.

2. Pool - While the pool yard is beautiful, I have been very disappointed by how short the pool season is. The pool is only open between Memorial Day and Labor Day. There have been several days in the upper 80 s and 90 s since the pool closed this season. Management could easily extend the pool season by another month. Also, the company contracted to provide lifeguard services has been very hit or miss. There have been seasons where the lifeguards have enforced rules that are directly contradictory to posted signs in the pool yard and in our lease terms. There have been some lifeguards that are very friendly and some that clearly don t want to be there. Every day I enjoyed the pool while living here there had been some sort of verbal altercation between the lifeguards and tenants. One other thing that I find very strange is the pool remains uncovered, filled, and heated year round. I feel that it is very wasteful for the community to pay for the heating of the pool throughout the winter instead of having the pool winterized and fully closed.

3. Parking - There are a number of very affordable parking options ranging from surface parking, to garage parking in an adjacent (but connected) property, and in Crystal Towers garage. The garage doors are constantly broken and cars have been vandalized. When the doors are broken anyone can freely enter or leave the garage. It has become a frequent target for wheel thefts.

Overall I find that the pros far outweigh the cons. It saddens me to be leaving the community that has been my home for the past two years but it is time for me to move on to a location in DC. I would rate the property 4/5 stars and highly recommend the property to all of my friends who are interested in moving to Arlington.