Stuart Family

Review of Marina City Club

I lived in Promenade/Marina City Club for three ye...

I lived in Promenade/Marina City Club for three years, and it was by far the worst rental situation I've experienced.

1) First, I never had one good night's sleep in three years. The docks outside of Marina City Club seem like there is a construction defect. The docks make so much noise. Because of this, I would wake up every hour or every two hours.

2) Secondly, all the balconies do not drain. This means you will have water gallons of water pouring into your living room and bedroom when it rains-and it's your job to clean it up. Management won't do it for you.

3) Constant loud construction. Expect jackhammers, saws, bobcats, cement trucks, and plumes of dust --over 2/3 of the time. You will get a notice every other week on your door that they're doing construction close to your unit. They'll let you know one day in advance. Sometimes the construction is inside your unit with workers inside your unit for weeks. (No discounts for the intrusion on your privacy.)



5) You can expect annual rent increases of up to 10%. I've heard of $300-$900 monthly increases.

6) Daniel Nolan in the Essex "management" office is not nice and makes no effort to be nice. And he checks out 50% of the time leaving signs on the locked leasing door that he'll be back, and it always takes 1-2 hours for him to come back (long after the time indicated on the sign). Good luck calling the leasing office, because he will rarely answer.

7) My neighbor had 4 bikes stolen in less than a year. About $10,000 of stolen property. The last bike was $100 at costco (they stole that one too.) If one had 4 bikes stolen in less than a year--clearly, there is major security problem.

8) Mold is not the exception, it's the rule. Even the head of the MCC homeowners association sued the Marina City Club for mold in his unit. My neighbor did the mold testing and provided the reports to the manager showing toxic levels of mold- Essex did not re-mediate --instead, they rented it to a couple with young children.

They treated us so badly that neighbors would walk dogs and meet around the mailboxes or common areas to discuss how horribly we were treated. The subject of conversation was always about one nightmare construction project or another, or whether someone had received an outrageous rent increase. I lost count of how many tenants left angry, livid and disgusted.