TL;DR - Great place to live if you work regular business hours, perhaps at Navy Federal, and don't…read morehave a small baby. Also great if you have pets. If you work late, you won't find parking. Think about whether you want to climb three flights of stairs or if you would rather put up with a significant amount of noise. Also, they are building a hotel right in front of the apartments, which will add to traffic and noise.
I recently signed my third and final lease here. I'll start with the pros: The location is convenient to Navy Federal, and many employees live in this community. When I moved in, they waived the application fee for NFCU employees but they don't do that anymore. It's also right off the interstate, so that's perfect for anywhere else that I want to go. Because I was one of the first to move in to Phase 2, I had my choice of units and I chose one on the first floor. The walls seem to be pretty thick - in three years I have never once heard my next door neighbors. I just found out there's a family of four next door because I saw them, not because I heard them. I haven't had many reasons to request maintenance, but when I do, they are usually pretty quick and are good about following up to make sure the issue was resolved. They're really nice guys. West woods also has a lawn service that keeps the grounds looking nice - they plant new flowers what seems like every three days. There's a car wash area, two decent pools, two gyms, and a nice clubhouse. The ladies in the office have never been overly friendly with me but they are always professional. I'm not the type to want to stay in there and chat, so it suits my needs. They answer my question and let me go about my day. Now moving on to the things that could be better: I mentioned earlier the walls are great. The ceiling is a whole different story. This is a pet friendly community with no breed restrictions, which I fully support. However, I feel like I'm living underneath a greyhound racetrack. The tenants before this new couple and their dog didn't have pets, but I could hear them just as loudly. I could hear their alarm clock go off, their feet hitting the floor, them walking to the bathroom, everything. I sleep with the bathroom fan on as well as a white noise app to try to drown out noise but it's really that loud. I've always lived in apartments and I know that these things sometimes happen but nowhere else I've ever lived has been this bad with the noise from the floor above. The other issue is parking. We both work late and get home at 11pm and 1am and we often have to park in phase 1, either right outside the leasing office or another section about 3 buildings over. This is fine if the weather is nice and we wore casual shoes. If it's cold and/or storming, it's awful trying to walk through that in heels or otherwise. We also have a newborn that we have to carry through all the elements late at night. West Woods tries to remind its residents to pick up after their pets, and they even provide poop bags. My patio is right in front of a small flower bed/patch of grass with bushes and some people won't pick up their dogs shit, so it smells bad sometimes when I want to sit out there. I haven't sat out there in about a year now for this reason. That's not the community's fault, but it does happen. Also, it's a gated community but the gate is often broken. I don't consider it to be a true luxury apartment, but it is one of the better places you'll be able to find in this area.
