Lived here for 5 years and overall had a good experience. Rent is definitely on the higher side but…read morefound it to be worth it.
PROS:
-Location: A ton of food and groceries nearby. Also within walking distance of Microsoft HQ. Super convenient to just walk 5 minutes to be able to get some food. Bus stops located just outside the property. Centrally located so easy to get anywhere within 15-30 min.
-Floor plan: Personally really liked my unit's floor plan (B2), there's a ton of counter space and cabinets in the kitchen, and the storage shelves in the bathroom were super convenient. I never had any issues storing items no matter the size. Kitchen island was also very large. Compared to the neighboring luxury apartment complexes, Hyde Square's floor plans seem the most well thought out and practical to me.
-Amenities: Tons of amenities here, including a 24/7 fitness center with a lot of equipment for an apartment gym (dumbbells up to 50lbs, 2 barbells, TRX bars, ~6-7 weight machines, cable machine, Peloton bike, stairmaster, etc). There are also other amenities like a sauna, hot tub, theater room, game room, etc, and a common area for hosting events (building across from the leasing office).
-Safety: Parking garage is gated and there is security staff that patrols the property at most hours (even at night). All entrances are also secured by fob key. I never felt unsafe coming back even really late at night. There is also an app that can be used to obtain access to the main entrance of your building (for example if you forget your fob key) which is convenient.
-Maintenance: Found the maintenance staff here to be super friendly and helpful. They are generally pretty quick at responding to maintenance requests.
CONS:
-Noise: Can be really noisy depending on your unit location and neighbors. I found the walls to be okay, didn't hear much noise from my surrounding neighbors, but a lot of sound travels from upstairs. I constantly heard my upstairs neighbor walking around their apartment, flushing the toilet, moving things around on the floor, etc which can definitely make or break your experience living here. I also lived close to 156th Ave NE, and there can be a lot of noise from cars outside listening to music loudly, revving their engines, even late at night. Also a ton of sirens sometimes.
-Leasing staff: In my 5 years of living here, the staff has changed a ton of times. Sometimes it's a completely different team of people working there even after just a few months. Generally the staff are helpful especially if you go to talk to them in person, but it's really hit or miss whether they will respond to your email or not. Once it took me 5+ phone calls with the leasing staff over the period of 1.5 months for them just to renew my lease, which was really frustrating.
-Amenities: Amenities are a pro but also a con... many of the amenities which you pay rent for are often under maintenance/broken. I get that the staff doesn't have much control over the repairs sometime (parts not in stock, etc) but it does feel like the cost of the rent is not justified sometimes when so many of the things you're paying for can't be used. Even things used frequently by everyone in the complex like elevators and parking garage gates were down for months at a time.
-Package deliveries: Hyde Square has gone through a number of package services which can change at any time, and you will be forced to pay for the service. The worst was when they switched to Fetch, what an absolute nightmare. They started charging each resident a mandatory I believe $20(?) monthly fee for packages to be routed to Fetch's third party warehouse, and then Fetch would deliver them to your apartment. Completely pointless and useless, and opting out was not an option. Right now they created a new package room and added more package lockers in the garage, which seems to be more secure (package theft was also rampant at some point because packages would be left outside doors or just in the lobby of each building). So it's good to see that they're trying to come up with a better solution, but be aware that they could decide to do something different and charge you some monthly fee, and there's not much you can do about it.
-Heat: I lived on the 6th floor and it got SO hot in my unit. If it's 70 degrees outside, it would easily be 85 in the apartment. I would definitely recommend getting an A/C unit or living on a lower floor so it's not as hot.
-Community: Quite a few discourteous residents living here. Smelly/oversized trash gets left in the trash room, people will park poorly or take other people's reserved spots, not clean up their dog's poop, smoke on the property, not observe quiet hours, etc. Kind of luck of the draw on what kind of neighbors you will get.
Overall, as long as you can stomach the rent price, make use of some of the amenities, and don't mind some noise/uncleanliness in the common areas, I would recommend living here.
