Pros:
-- Polite and efficient leasing office, maintenance,…read moreand security personnel.
-- Nice lobby, lounge, and above-average fitness room.
-- Reasonably spacious, well-maintained, contemporary apartments.
-- Very quiet on the back (alley) side of the building.
-- One block from the Convention Center, Chipotle, Subway sandwich shop, and a 7-Eleven.
-- Two blocks from Camden Yards, Starbucks, Nando's Peri Peri, and the Hippodrome.
-- Six blocks from the Inner Harbor and the excellent Streets grocery market.
-- About a mile from Whole Foods in Harbor East.
-- The location is very convenient to I-95 and the Parkway.
-- The fire station on Lombard is not as noisy as you'd expect, because Lombard is a one-way street so the fire engines all drive away from the building, not past it.
Cons:
-- The neighborhood is creepy at night, to the north and west. I never had a problem, but police activity seemed to be common on Howard Street, and there was a shooting at Lexington Market six blocks away. Rats are abundant around the light-rail station, but not around the apartment building itself.
-- The HVAC units take up living space, costly to run, and suffer from some condensation/dampness problems.
-- The Royal Farms Arena is across the street. Crowds aren't too noisy, but when there isn't a show or game going on, the stretch of Howard Street in front of the apartment building is desolate.
-- The light rail trains ARE noisy with their honking and rumbling immediately outside the building, and their concatenary disrupts over-the-air TV when the trains pass by. So avoid living on the Howard Street side of the building below, say, the seventh floor. (I lived on Five.)
-- Parking is pricey, and winters were a problem, as the entry deck of the garage accumulated snow and ice. Parking spaces are pre-assigned, which is great except when your spot fills up with snow.
In response to what other reviewers have said:
I lived in two apartments in the building from 2015 to 2017. The fire alarms rarely went off. The building's windows seemed well-insulated from noise, compared to other apartment buildings that I toured nearby.
Summary: The building is great. The neighborhood is OK for a student on a budget or someone who doesn't mind living among Baltimore's grittier but mostly non-violent downtown residents. If you're new to Baltimore and looking for a tony neighborhood with hip hangouts, though, you need to look at apartments on Charles Street or in Harbor East, Canton, or Hampden, not here.
