My husband and I lived here for a year in a 2/1 townhouse. I never was in any of the apartments, but I assume the structure and features and pretty much the same. We liked living here, but it wasn't the best place I've ever lived.
Pros: It's an easy drive down into Boulder or up to Longmont. It also was easy for me to get to Lafayette which was important since I had to drive there frequently for doctor appointments. The townhouse itself was a good size with very large bedrooms. The little yard was also a nice feature since we have a dog and I like to garden. The neighborhood is very quiet and peaceful. We never had any issues with noisy traffic or people. There is a large park within walking distance that is off-leash and we had a great time playing with our dog there on a daily basis. It is also within walking distance to another off-leash area with a lake which was great since our dog loves swimming. The staff here were always very polite and helpful. Plus, they have donuts and coffee on Saturday mornings.
Cons: The buildings are old and you can tell. The floors squeak on the upper level and the stairs. The ceiling paint started to peel in the bathroom and there was a bulge in the kitchen ceiling as well. You'll want to invest in lamps because the lights here are few and far between. No light in the living room or either bedroom and the lights in the kitchen are too dim for how large of a space it is. The living room is a weird shape so even though the dimensions sound big, you can really only use half the space for furniture. We also had an issue with smoke from our fireplace somehow getting into our neighbors townhouse. Who knows why. If you like ceiling fans like we do, there aren't any. Also, the insulation sucks. In the winter, we could feel the cold air seeping in. In the summers, the upstairs never cools off very well. Probably because the vents are in the floor and warm air rises, cold air falls. So, that's a big fail. Even with the a/c set to like 68 it was still closer to 80 upstairs. Mostly we used the cooler nights and open doors/windows to cool off the upstairs when it was hot out. When you look at the place, you think that you can have cable in multiple rooms. You would be wrong. We had ONE cable outlet that was actually hooked up to the cable. The others connected to nothing and, according to the cable technician who came out, the interior ones couldn't be anyways. Very misleading. Lastly, they were not very good about telling us when things were turned off, like when we were moving out and they turned off the water or when the gas went out and we had no heat.
Horrible things that we dealt with but you probably wouldn't: When the huge flood happened last September, our yard didn't drain very well. It's a miracle that the water didn't come into the house, but we did have to get buckets and literally scoop the water up from the porch area and throw it out over the fence. Eventually, I dug a little hole by the fence and that helped it to not flood. Another time, the gas line for the area went out. This was during and extreme cold snap and it was in the negatives. Because we had such poor insulation, by the time they fixed it the next day, our house was 32*. During that same cold snap, the boiler for our building froze and burst. We had no hot water for about 4 days. These things really weren't anything the complex could control, but some of the things might not have been AS bad if the townhouse was in better shape and if they had actually told us these things were happening. We found out about the gas and the hot water from me calling them to see what was going on.
Overall, it wasn't bad. I definitely expected more considering how expensive it is. Consider that in Superior, the other townhouse we looked at is about the same price, but is completely updated and has a 2 car garage. We certainly paid for convenience to the north side of Boulder and both of our jobs over nice amenities and construction. Would we do it again, knowing what we do now? Probably, just because it wasn't bad and convenient. I've made it sound worse than it was, I think. Bottom line, if you can deal with the cons and you want a decently nice place to live that is an easy drive to the surrounding cities, live here. If not, keep looking. read more