St. Andrews at Winston Park Apartments

First off, incredibly overpriced complex with none of the perks, insane renewal rates, hallways are always littered with debris including occasional urine or dog s#*t and in need of a serious paint job. Power washing is suppose to happen weekly (or so stated when I signed) it DOESN’T so all sorts of smells and stains linger in the halls, gross. Their valet trash service is a HUGE rip off that’s mandatory when you sign the lease. People place trash out whenever they feel like it so you’re literally stepping over people’s crap. Dog owners don’t pick up after their dogs but that may be because there are very few dog posts that are rarely replenished with bags. Can’t leave your vehicle parked in one spot for too long or they tow it no questions asked even though they have your vehicle information on file, crazy right?! Office staff has terrible communication if any at all with its’ residents. There are break ins regularly, no cameras, the front gate is usually open or broken and for the record a gated community is surrounded by a gate NOT shrubs and trees like this complex is. You have to bombard the office with phone calls if you need something fixed. My absolute favorite though is when they threatened to break my lease not even 2 months after I moved in if I didn’t get blood work done for my dog. The best part was I had given the office all of his credentials BEFORE moving in AND paid the $ 500 fee but they argued receiving a complaint that he was an aggressive breed and wanted the blood test as proof meanwhile they allow all sorts of breeds into their complex, you name it they’re here… I smell scam. Despite what their website states there is no volleyball court, tennis court has no net, gym has outdated, missing & unkept equipment which is used as a playground by kids but the racquet court is pretty cool. The pool is used by everyone & I mean EVERYONE even people who wonder in off the street. If you have no other alternative then I recommend an apartment right by the office I will say that’s the one area they maintain otherwise save your $ and look elsewhere. You’ve been warned.

Staff work to be sure residents are satisfied, but only when they become irate. First complex I’ve lived in but have learned there’s a few things you have to deal with that seem the same everywhere you go: trash pick up (residents leave trash out longer than scheduled) and parking. It all depends on your neighbors. I am happy with the immediate response I received after sending an email with concerns, all were addressed the following morning… Until my next service request…

Ok community. It can be expensive when renewing. They keep the grounds fairly clean and presentable. The maintenance staff do a good job with repairs and follow up.
The office staff has some room for improvement. They rarely pick up the phone. You usually just have go out of your way and drive to the office. Marla, one of the sales reps, has an obvious lack on sincerity when working with residents on problems. You generally will have to push her through the task of finding packages and addressing you problems. Gina on the other hand is a pleasure to work with. If it were not for Gina, this would be a 1 star review.
All in all, I would live there again. Just would set me expectations lower…

I had to deliberate over how many stars to give St. Andrews at Winston Park. I have one major complaint, but it’s so significant as to warrant only a two-​star review.
The good: I like my apartment. I’ve had no trouble with maintenance or vermin. The staff in the leasing office and the maintenance crew are all very fine people. St. Andrews is dog friendly. Unless you investigate carefully, it’s luck of the draw concerning what you’ll experience in your building. I got lucky and it seems the other people in my building are respectful, relatively quiet, and take care of their pets’ business. The Winston Park neighborhood is lovely, and the location is convenient for commuting.
The bad & ugly: Not long ago I received my lease renewal offer (for my one-​year lease). Equity, the corporation who owns and operates St. Andrews, proposed raising my rent by 12.4%. According to the US Labor Statistics, the average rent increase for the Ft. Lauderdale area over the last year was 5.3%. Equity’s offer was more than twice the average. When I signed my original lease, the agent I spoke with indicated that lease offers are negotiable. Here is what I came to understand when I attempted to negotiate my lease renewal. 1) Equity bases rent for lease renewals on market price (thus current tenants are treated as if they are in the market, rather than at home already). 2) Equity has a proprietary formula to calculate projected market prices on their apartments. 3) In part, the price this formula generates is dependent on how much demand there is for the apartment model you live in. It seems that rather than keeping good tenants by offering reasonable lease renewal offers, Equity would rather have a high tenant turnover if they are able to lease to someone willing to pay much more. 4) Equity’s negotiation process is predetermined. Their projected market formula gives them a price for your lease renewal. Based on that number, another price is determined as the lowest they’ll possibly offer. This is not a negotiation process. I wonder why Equity wouldn’t just offer the renewing tenant the lowest price from the get go. Over the last few days I’ve watched the price for my apartment model decrease on the St. Andrews website. It’s currently listed as 5.3% less than the price in my lease renewal offer. My lease is due to renew in a couple months. According to Equity’s formula and the number they gave me in my lease renewal, they expect the price of my apartment model to increase by 5.3% in two months, while, as mentioned before, the US Labor statistic showed an average 5.3% over one year. That’s quite the proprietary formula they have. I plan to stay because I wasn’t prepared to move after living at St. Andrews for just one year. I haven’t yet signed my lease because I want to see how the price changes closer to my actual renewal date. I emailed the corporate headquarters about all this and received an automatic reply that their goal is to respond to me within two days. As of the writing of this review, it’s been almost two weeks and I haven’t had any reply.
Summary: I like my apartment and I like living in the Winston Park neighborhood of Coconut Creek. However, it’s my strong impression that folks upstairs at Equity Residential have a distinct lack of integrity.
Update as of 6÷6÷16: The conclusion to the above narrative is that under Equity, my rent was increased by 8%. Certainly this was an improvement from 12%, but still outrageous. A few months ago the complex was sold by Equity to Pinnacle management company. Pinnacle is an improvement over Equity. Our recent lease renewal had our rent increase by 4% with no «negotiation» process.

I lived in St. Andrews for almost two years. When we first moved in the complex was nice. Good neighbors and clean. Over the course of that year and a half the complex went severely downhill. The hallways took weeks to clean. People would leave garbage, food, and pet feces all in the hallways which caused it to stink and generally be unpleasant. The dog stations were rarely replenished with bags so people would not clean up after their pets. And the neighbors were AWFUL. Partying all night, drinking and smoking in the stairwells and constantly slamming doors at all hours of the night. The front gates were either broken or open at night and closed during the days. Although the staff was pleasant when you did actually get in touch with them, the service came slow. We had complained about the same things multiple times with no response. Leaking cielings and walls when it rained and broken ice maker. We were very happy to have left when we did. Hopefully management going forward gets better than what we experienced.