Concord Crystal City

Lots of healing energy! Concierge desk, engineering, leasing and management team work together seamlessly like ONE compassionate team — World-​class! Clean. Quiet. Nice neighbours. Individual TVs screens on all gym machines, so you don’t have to listen to what you don’t like. Running track around the gym so you can still run while it snores outside. Pool on the second floor with gigantic glass walls. Right next door to Hyatt Large garage! Private entrance to Starbucks. Awesome Massage room. The yoga room is world class. Toilets and bath tops are better than in five-​star hotels. Very large glass windows. Awesome mirrors everywhere. The name «Concord» perfectly fits — These guys take property management to a whole new level. I have been living in Crystal City for 7 years now, and I regret I did not move here earlier — They are the absolute best in this zip code.

My husband & I have been here since 2011 and just renewed our lease for another year ! It’s a beautiful and modern building, super clean with great amenities. we would highly /​gladly recommend it to any future resident .
The staff (Management, Leasing, Concierge, Maintenance & Housekeeping) are all so nice and extremely helpful !
Thank you all for another great year and please keep up the good work .
Happy & Healthy New Year !

My husband and I have lived here nearly two years and thoroughly enjoy it.
It’s clean, quiet, offers a nice gym, pool and community areas. The staff is kind and competent. The building is quiet — we work odd hours and I’ve never been awoken by noisy neighbors. The Concord is perfectly positioned — 15 minutes to the Metro, a 15-​minute walk to Harris Teeter, Target and a movie theater.
The apartment is great — gas stove, in-​apartment washer and dryer, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, good-​size bathrooms and closets.
Very happy with our decision to rent here.

The most urgent thing that needs fixing is the ceiling glass roof above the pool which is badly cracked and looks quite dangerous. The walls on many floors are very scuffed and damaged and the carpets need replacing. There are tiles missing for months at the door of the pool. The owner chooses to purchase an 85 inch tv and very uncomfortable furniture instead of properly maintaining the up keep of this building, how sad.

My boyfriend and I have been living here for almost a year now and absolutely love it! Our apartment is gorgeous – love the granite countertops and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, the layout, and the space we have which is rare for the area. The location is great with a 15 minute walk to the metro, an awesome gym, pool, and a Starbucks connected to the building (plus Bozellis is right there!) and lots of good restaurants in walking distance. High line R&R is a new fun bar that opened up this past week, which has been great. They even have awesome events in this apartment complex, such as a holiday party and wine tasting events.
We have had a few slight issues with maintenance especially when we first moved in but found that when we directly contacted management, our issues were quickly resolved.
It is somewhat pricey, but everywhere is in this area. My boyfriend and I thoroughly looked throughout Arlington and Alexandria and felt the Concord was the best bang for our buck – and we haven’t been disappointed!

Concord is a first class living experience where the entire staff makes you feel at home. The amenities are unmatched and a terrific location.
A couple reasons we moved to Concord include a full size washer and dryer (a rare find in DC apartment life), a full size tub another rare feature, and first class service keeps us here.

I love living here. We are moving out to move into the city but our experience here has been wonderful. The apartments are nice, it’s safe, in a nice area, and very dog friendly.
Also, the staff are fantastic. They are friendly and helpful! The concierges are the nicest people in the world, the maintenance staff response quickly to requests and are always kind, and management is always helpful. Living here has been a dream, and it is so hard to leave, but closer to work is our living goal.
I would definitely recommend this place to a friend.

I’ve lived in Concord for about 6 months and I’m definitely a fan. There haven’t been any surprises and all in all, it’s been a great place to live. Since I’ve been here, they’ve made a lot of improvements, renovations, and I can tell that management seems to have a handle on issues.
Pros:
— Unlike some other reviewers, I find the parking situation to be great. The online validation system works for my guests and there is always ample parking anytime, day or night.
— My unit was one of the first with hardwood floors; they look great.
— The rooftop deck, which was recently remodeled, is an awesome addition.
— I go at odd hours, but I’ve never had trouble getting gym equipment. It always seems kind of empty to me. Great gym.
— Most of the concierge attendants are very friendly and helpful.
— Other reviewers have complained that the units are not insulated. I have found mine to be just great. It’s quiet too — only occasionally do I hear my neighbor’s alarm clock.
— Can’t beat having a Starbucks onsite.
Cons:
— It’s not super close to the Metro, but it’s definitely walkable. Luckily, most of the walk is through the Underground, so when it’s cold, hot, or rainy, it’s not a bad walk.
— The halls on my floor are pretty scuffed, but most of the other public areas look fine.
— As another reviewer mentioned, the pipes make a lot of noise when the dishwasher is running. It’s not the end of the world, but it does cause some odd noises.

First off, I’m not a resident at Concord Crystal City. I just wanted to point out that about a year or two ago, someone threw a half-​full bottle of sports drink from one of the upper floors at me, as I passed by on Crystal Drive below. The sound was very loud as the bottle hit the pavement, so I knew it was dropped from a top floor. I could have been seriously injured, if the bottle had struck me on the head.
Whenever I walk or bike past the building now, I always look up at the balconies, just in case. Maybe it was some drunk corporate resident back then. Or someone’s guest. Doesn’t matter. The fact is that it happened. I contacted the building but didn’t receive much of a response. (It was a long time ago, so I don’t remember if they responded at all.) I also called the police non-​emergency number.
Fast-​forward a year or two. I’ve discovered that when I contacted the building management back then, they added me to their email marketing list. Uh, OK. Not the worst thing in the world, but it’s kind of obnoxious.

My overall summary of this place is that under the thin façade of luxury there are tons of problems. It’s like they wanted to make everything classy but it was all half-​assed and completely failed. Honestly, I have liked living here the last two years but it’s been in no part due to the building, it’s just a decent location with a good commute for me.
I’m going to list out the pros and cons, but even the pros usually have some sort of caveat. I would probably be a little less harsh if they didn’t try to make you think it was real luxury (and if the rent was not so absurd).
Pros:
— Nice building: The lobby area is very beautiful and nicely furnished. It attaches to a starbucks and has a nice rec room with TV and WiFi. It has a gas fireplace which is cool but it always smells like natural gas! They advertise they have a private entrance to starbucks but that store holds hours for the business crowd – They close at 2pm on weekends. They also tout that there is a bus that runs to the metro but that is also only weekdays
— Good location: 10 – 15 minute walk to the metro, ~$ 20 (with tip) taxi ride to and from downtown area, short walk to a range of restaurants of varying quality and price point. Easy drive/​cab to Old Town. Tons of hotels competing with each other means cheap rooms for visitors and lots of free shuttles to Reagan.
— Underground parking is nice as long as you can find a spot with minimal leaky pipes and some support columns to give you a buffer. It stayed above 50 degrees in the garage through the whole year, even during the cold snap when we were in the single digits. (See below for more on parking)
— The gym is pretty nice and usually I’ve been able to find an open cardio machine when I work out in the evening. The mornings can be a little busier and sometimes the machines are broken for weeks at a time.
Cons:
— Expensive. It’s expensive as fuck to live here, do I need to say more? Just look at the rent on the website.
— Management: Most of the concierge and maintenance folks are nice and helpful, but the leasing office, especially the property manager, doesn’t give a single fuck. I should’ve known on move-​in day when the now-​property manager Nick did fuck-​all about another tenant blocking the loading dock when I had it reserved, simply dismissing me. After two years they tried to raise our rent when apartments with the same floorplan were going for $ 250 less/​month to new tenants. We even raised this issue ahead of time but they ignored our requests. After we gave notice, they put our apartment on the market for $ 190 less per month than they offered us, which doesn’t even make sense.
— Water: I have no idea if this is the Concord’s fault, but the cold water tap here is severely affected by the weather. This means you get ice cold water in the winter and lukewarm «cold» water in summer. This also means 10 minutes MAX for a hot shower in the winter, and no refreshing cool showers after a workout in the summer. I seriously think the difference is 20 – 30 degrees across the seasons. Also, running the dishwasher, taking a shower, or even just running hot water from the tap causes huge booming pipe creaking. We stopped running the dishwasher overnight because it was so loud it would wake us up. If one person gets up before the other and takes a shower, it will wake the other up.
— Drafty: The windows and balcony are extremely poorly insulated and so the apartment is impossible to keep warm in the winter.
— Apartment quality/​construction: Whoever they used/​are using to finish the interiors of the apartment do a godawful job. The cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom are TERRIBLE quality and poorly put together. The center «beam» on one of our cabinets that the doors are supposed to rest against when closed was assembled crooked so the door doesn’t close right. All of the contact paper (or whatever) on the tops and bottoms of the cabinet doors to make it look finished are peeling off. There are specks of white paint on the corner of our bathroom mirrors and towel bars. The door-​stops screwed into the doors were all stripped and falling out on day 1. I could go on, but you get the point.
— Parking: It’s expensive ($ 75 first car, $ 100 2^nd) as hell and visitor parking relies on a website that never works. The garage is full of leaky pipes that will drip nasty water/​god knows what on your car in many spots. The garage is open to the public and security is crappy. My bike was stolen out of one of the locked enclosures on the third level. The elevators to the garage are not attached to the elevators to the apartments. Spots are small and a-​holes will park inches away from you or in multiple spots. There are giant, low-​hanging electric fans (I guess to dry out the garage after rain) that I always hit my head on.

After two years living at Concord, I moved out and now feel I can write a comprehensive review.
It wasn’t all bad. Most of the people working at the front desk are very nice and will help you whenever you need it. The common areas are beautiful and well maintained. The gym is the nicest gym I’ve ever seen in an apartment, and it’s open 24 hours. The business center is also the most well functioning I’ve ever experienced, and the printer always worked except one time when they were replacing it.
But the bad far outweighed the good. Superficially, everything looks nice at first, but in the units, most fixtures are shoddy. We had a lot of cabinets come apart with minimal use.
When we moved in, it was clear they hadn’t changed the carpet and the previous tenants had pets, from the smell of pet food and a faint urine smell in one room. We fought back and forth with management for several days to change the carpet, and they denied that they were responsible or that there was a smell, even when their own maintenance people admitted that the closet smelled unmistakably and strongly of cat food. Eventually they replaced it, so after move in, we had to move all our belongings to the tiled areas of the apartment and had to not use it for a day, which was a huge inconvenience.
Speaking of maintenance, they have a maintenance website for work orders that never worked. The maintenance people were generally good and quickly responsive, though I did have one case where they had to fix a toilet handle that required constant jiggling. After it was fixed, I found blue toilet water all over the outside of the toilet, the bathroom wall, trailed across the whole apartment leading to the front door, and on the front door, so they had to come back to clean that.
And speaking of websites that don’t work, their «upgraded» guest parking website didn’t work. Previously, the front desk person would validate a guest’s parking ticket from the garage. They «modernized» this with a self-​validation website and limited you to five guests, which was really zero guests, since the website never seemed to work correctly. Once, the broken website resulted in us using our own parking tag to let a guest out. The parking garage manager tried to force us to pay the full daily rate for a lost ticket the next time we exited. We already paid $ 175 per month to park in a mostly empty garage in Crystal City, and we can’t even let one free guest in for a few hours on New Year’s Eve? The rest of our guests found street parking or used metro, which I recommend. As others have mentioned, the parking garage is a cluster. I parked in a larger spot when I was out of town for a few weeks, and my car was hit. Another time, a car parked at such a weird angle that i was blocked in and couldn’t move my car.
They also modernized their package system, so you do get an email when you have a package, but their screen up front that shows whether you have a package is usually not functional.
The aforementioned gym? They let people from other buildings use it, which is generally not that bad, but on days when you can’t find an open machine, you wonder why you’re paying $ 2400+ in rent when you could live at a cheaper place and just pay extra to use Concord’s gym.
Don’t live at Concord if you don’t like cold weather or showers. The units are drafty and poorly insulated. We had to keep the blinds closed to retain more heat and even put large cardboard boxes in front of the windows of the coldest room. Do you shave your legs? Well at Concord you’ll have to pick your favorite one because you won’t have enough hot water during the winter to shave both. I literally had to shave a single leg per shower and alternate days.
The building is not handicap accessible, though they have made a half-​hearted attempt to upgrade it. If you’re in a wheelchair, you basically have to wait outside until someone sees you and lets you in. They installed an automatic door for this about a year ago, but it’s often broken and was not functional at the time I moved out. They also have frequent issues with flooding at the front entrance, making it even less friendly to those with disabilities.
We saw online that the unit above ours with the same plan was being leased at about $ 200 less than our rent. We emailed management to ask if we could renew at the lower rate. They never responded, and when we went to talk to them personally, they would not negotiate and said rent never goes down for current tenants. When our renewal offer came, it was $ 15/​month more than what we were paying, so we chose to move out. After we submitted our notice, we saw our exact unit was listed online for $ 180 per month less than what we were paying. This doesn’t even make business sense and just illustrates how terrible the management is. They could have offered us that same rate and not paid to have the unit vacant for a week during cleaning and upgrades. I am very happy to have left Concord.

It’s a very nice building am I’m far happier here than my previous apartment at Post Pentagon Row. And, the rent is considerably cheaper.
The concierges are very nice and pick up of packages is available ²⁴⁄₇. It has a nice gym and maintenance is very responsive.
It’s a bit of a walk to the Metro but most of it can be done underground. Lots of bars and restaurants close by. The common areas are very well maintained, including a very nice roof top area.
Nice underground parking with five free valuations per month for guests or if you don’t have a car but need an occasional rental.
Most apartments have a nice balcony. All utilities are individually metered so you don’t have to pay for someone else’s gas and electricity if you are frugal yourself.
I’m quite pleased that I moved here and recommend it to others.

I lived here for a year last year. The building is very pretty looking inside. It kind of feels like you’re in a hotel — which is accurate because they do a lot of corporate housing. Because they do corporate housing, the hallways can look dingy because people don’t care about the appearance.
Overall, I enjoyed living here. The leasing office was helpful, and the maintenance staff were speedy. Generally, I didn’t have any issues with the apartment. The balcony did flood a lot which was a little concerning, but it never went into the apartment.
They do a lot of events like yappy hours for dogs & their owners, 4^th of July fireworks party and other resident related parties!
As the year went on though, the building started to look more dilapidated. One of the front doors didn’t work for 5 months, and there was always a leak when it rained in the lobby which made the mats stink of mold.
Another concern was that I had been recommended to live here by a friend and she should have received a $ 500 incentive. As far as I know, she never received it. I could be wrong, but that is a big incentive that she deserves!
The area is good, but dead on the weekends. Walking distance to the metro & if it’s too far, during the week there’s a bus stop right across the street!

Overall, I love my unit, but have some major issues with Concord.
Cons:
–The biggest item on this list is the lack of sound proofing between units. In my last building (Meridian at Eisenhower), we hardly ever heard our neighbors. I assumed that, since the Concord is also a new construction, the sound proofing would be comparable to the Meridian. Unfortunately, we feel like we share a home with our neighbors — we can actually hear their conversations (and I’m sure they can hear ours!). This is made worse by the fact that we have the worst neighbors imaginable. To our left, «douche-​y beat box guy», as we refer to him. He plays his music SO LOUD that our walls actually shake. At all hours of the day (3 am on a Wednesday…7 am on a Monday, doesn’t matter, he’s listening to his house music). To the right, we have a family with 3 young boys… and those kids literally bounce of the walls (and throw basketballs against the walls, scream, cry, etc.). We are woken up every morning (…including weekends) at 6 am. While I understand that it must be tough to keep three wild children in an apartment, I’m not so understanding at 6 am on a Saturday after working an 80+ hour week. We’ve complained about the noise to management, and they sent a letter to the neighbors. Our neighbors down the hall have also complained. We haven’t seen any improvement. While the two reps in the leasing office that we complained to were very nice and understanding, we’ve been really upset that they haven’t followed up or done anything to resolve this issue.
–The Concord has a large constituency of corporate housing/​short term tenants. While this isn’t always a bad thing, we’ve found that a lot of these short term tenants treat our home more like a hotel. Also, the leasing office seems very hesitant to deal with these folks because it is such a great source of revenue for the Concord.
–The concierge is HORRIBLE with packages. We never realized until we left the Meridian just how efficient they were (and the Meridian has many more residents!). Here, they often take more than a day to notify you that you have a package… if they notify you at all. If you know you are getting a package, you have to track it online and force the concierge to dig for it in the disorganized package closet; otherwise, it will sit back there for weeks. Personally, one of the reasons that I like living in an apt bldg is b/​c I work long hours and do a lot of my shopping online, so I like to know that my packages will be safe. Here, I feel like they go into a black hole. On a related note, the concierge (at least the evening concierge) will often disappear for an hour or more at a time (with a sign that says «back in 15»).
–No more grills. The city of Arlington took away the Concord’s right to operate grills on the rooftop. Not sure what management is doing to fix this, but fingers crossed…
–No high speed scanner. This probably will not affect most people, but it is huge for me. I often work from home at night and on weekends, and I need to scan documents, so I was VERY excited on our tour when the leasing rep told us (and confirmed when I asked again on our second visit to sign the lease) that they have a high speed scanner in their business room. As soon as I moved in, I learned that the scanning option was disabled and would never be enabled… no explanation as to why the leasing rep claimed (twice!) that this would be available…
–In general, the leasing office isn’t very responsive (although they do respond quickly to service requests), and you often have to hound them with emails/​phone calls before they will respond. Our leasing rep actually told us on our tour that «these places just sell themselves… we really don’t have to do much.» Very telling.
–I do think rent is a bit high for what you get here — especially given the distance to the metro.
–The elevator in the parking garage does not go straight to the apartment floors. You have to get out at ground level, walk through the lobby, and switch elevators. I didn’t think this would bother me, but it’s pretty annoying when you’re carrying a bunch of groceries.
Pros:
–I LOVE our actual unit (minus the sound issues). I love all of the natural light and high end fixtures (and gas stove). I love having a balcony and a fireplace, and we have an amazing view of the airport/​DC. The garden bath tubs are nice too (except when your neighbor is blasting house music on the other side of the wall). I do wish that the bedrooms were a bit larger and that there were hardwood (or laminate hardwood) floors, but that’s just being picky.
–The grounds and amenities are really nice as well — pretty standard for the area and type of building though. The pool is pretty unique, but we’ve never used it, so it’s wasted on us. In the summer, we like to eat dinner on the roof top (…was even better when the grills worked) — great view of the airport. Rooftop can get very crowded.

2014 Update: The review below is accurate. I dropped them from 4 to 5 because they eliminated guest parking (basically). Also, the staff in the parking deck are openly hostile towards the residents. Fortunately they are easily avoided (just don’t have guests) and take a picture to prove you parked between the lines when you leave your car just in case they try to pull something. Sans parking issues, this place is a SOLID 5 stars.
—Previous 9÷3÷2012 Review—
Like Jonathan, I swear I don’t work for Bozzuto. I’ve lived at a couple of their properties and every time I’ve lived somewhere else I’ve had an inferior experience. I’ve also now lived at the Concord twice, and both times have been experiences which lead me to highly recommend the Concord despite the price premium. Often higher rents mean you’re getting fleeced, but here you actually get what you pay for (at least in comparison with other local rents).
Random tidbit… I was the very first person to ever live in the Concord. Because I had signed my lease during construction when moving from Baltimore the building wasn’t completely open when I moved in (which I was fine with, I was making a 4 – 5 hour commute daily). They would have let me out of it, but I (correctly) assessed that it was going to be the best building in the area and moved in regardless. I wasn’t alone for long however and lots of interesting and generally friendly people moved in to join me. Yes, there is a big corporate housing contingent in the building but I have never seen any issues as a result of that, only that I regularly meet new and interesting people in the gym.
I will echo Jonathan’s general comments and not repeat them, he’s spot on. The gym here is better than any other gym in the area, and better than any other apt gym I’ve ever seen. The indoor pool is also fairly unique for the area and without exception the grounds, the amenities, etc are well maintained. I have rarely waited more than a few hours for any kind of maintenance and the one time I did have a major issue (water leak before the building was 100% open I think) they were all over it and replaced everything (I mentioned my allergy to mold, and they took extra care to ensure there would be none).
I’ve now dealt with the management from the time the building was built until now and without exception they’ve been fantastic. The concierge staff is awesome and the parking is easy. There’s also ample street parking for guests, and the apt complex will validate people who use the garage. If you’re going to live in the area, this is really the only place I’d seriously consider. After all, that’s why I moved back after being in Capitol Hill for 2 year

I swear to you that I don’t work for Bozzuto.
That being said, this was the best move I ever made. The Concord is one of the nicest apartment communities I have ever seen. The Apartments really seal the deal. They have Glass balconies on some models, closets that can double as small rooms, three different kitchen finishes, and 18^th story Penthouse units with panoramic views of DCA, Maryland, the District and beyond!
The whole community very well maintained, very well staffed, and relatively quiet to boot. Situated right on the southern edge of Crystal City you’ve got it all at your fingertips. You have a «private/​residents only» access to the Starbucks in the building, as well as an on-​site Bozzelli’s to satisfy those odd pizza cravings. The gym is spacious, the lobby is anything but cramped, the indoor pool is open year round, and I’d challenge you to find a better view of the metro area than on the Concord’s roof. Parking here isn’t the cheapest, ($ 75 for one, $ 100 for your second), but it is almost hassle free. The garage is well lit, albeit a bit tight, but manageable. All in all, the amenities and services here are top notch. It’s only a ten minute walk to a 24 hour Harris Teeter Grocery Store, and the Italian Fusion restaurant Soccii is across the street!
The staff is friendly, ready and willing to handle any and all of your questions without reservation. I’ll bet you’ll know most of the concierges by name within the first couple of weeks too. They even take care of your unwanted items with a staff ran «Salvation Army» Collection area. You just drop your things off in the loading dock and the staff gets them out to charity; talk about a luxury.
You’re only a five minute walk to a Buffalo Wild Wings, and consequently the heart beat of Crystal Drive, and less than fifteen to the metro. It really is easy living. True, you can rent directly on the underground and have a much shorter walk to the train (covered the whole way); just be ready to tack about $ 200-​$ 400 dollars to what you can expect to pay per month. Nevertheless, you’re ten minutes from Rosslyn, five minutes from the district, and only fifteen from Georgetown. It’s the perfect staging area for a metro based couple if I ever saw one.
The only real downsides are that the building is heavily a «Corporate Housing» lender. That can be a positive when it comes to underused amenities, but in my case, its heavy neighbor turnaround. The walls aren’t the thickest, and sometimes that’s a downside — but honestly, its only a problem when someone is right on the wall screaming, yelling, or whatever. Every time I had a complaint, the management and leasing staff was very responsive and handled it quick.
Ultimately, Crystal City is a commercial center, so you’ve got the best of both worlds — a city lifestyle with a quiet backdrop (If that’s what you like). Crystal Drive has the hustle and bustle Monday through Friday and peace and quiet on the weekends. Some of the services and restaurants in the area close a bit early, but it’s understandable; and unless you’re scared of the metro, there’s always something to do. I didn’t think it could be done.