The Continental

I thought this building was gorgeous when I moved in. It has amazing amenities and dogs everywhere, which I love. The location is perfect and the apartment itself is new and up to date. After living here for a year I can honestly say I have never experienced a ruder or more careless leasing/​building staff. I had a leasing consultant in the Mercantile building THROW keys at me in anger and I have over heard the quote from one of the office/​mail workers «I like to sit here and do as little as possible.» The building is not kept up the way it should be, after any given weekend, there are beer bottles and stains all over the floor. The quality of people is not up to par with the type of apartment they are getting. I have been insulted in the elevator by a resident, my dog has been attacked, and the elevators are always broken. The staff literally does not care about their residents, and it is such a shame because the building really is so beautiful!

I moved in at the end of February and with exception of a few hiccups, I love living here. This is an extremely dog friendly environment.

DO NOT LIVE HERE. The leasing agents put on a very good show, but they’ll pull the wool over your eyes. Before you know it, you’re screwed and hate where you’re living with four months still left on your lease.
Last July my roommate and I were thrilled to find a brand new apartment building opening in downtown Dallas. They even opened an apartment early for us to move in. The apartment finishes and amenities put all our Uptown friends’ apartments to shame. We’ve been spending a mostly pleasant nine months living at the apartment, but it has all been ruined by the curve ball we were thrown last week.
When we signed our lease, we were told that since we lived in a two-​bedroom apartment we would be assigned a tandem parking spot. (Meaning, a spot that is long enough for two cars to fit; one parked behind the other.) We were NOT happy about this since we didn’t constantly want to have to move one car to be able to get another one out. However, the leasing agent assured us that single parking places are unmarked and unreserved, so we can just park in any of those. I saw the tandem spot we were given as a «bonus» since we lived in a two-​bedroom apartment. We weren’t even told where our tandem parking place was until September, so we couldn’t park in it if we wanted to. When we were finally given a spot, one of us would park in the tandem place while the other parked in a single. We paid a total of $ 140 for parking A MONTH, and one-​bedroom residents paid $ 70 for an unmarked, unreserved single spot.
We wouldn’t have lived here had we been under the impression that we were expected to park both of our cars in the tandem spot. Also, we were given a magnetic sticker that opened the garage door, but told there wouldn’t be any official parking permits or anything of that sort.
Mind you, we’ve been living here since July 2013. The building has been open since April 2013. And it isn’t until mid-​March of 2014 that they not only start distributing parking placards (that we were told weren’t going to exist in the first place), but also send an email saying that anyone parked in a single parking spot without a single parking permit will be towed. Meaning, my car could be towed for parking in my own apartment building in a parking place I was originally told I could park at.
Despite our attempts to talk it over with the leasing agents, they insist that it was a «misunderstanding» and there’s nothing they can do about it. We asked if we could give up our tandem spot and instead pay for two single spots. (We would still end up paying $ 140/​month.) The answer came back a resounding NO. My roommate and I cannot park in single spots, and for the next four months we will both have to play musical chairs with our cars anytime one of us wants to run to the grocery store, pick something up from the office or grab Chipotle. I’m REALLY looking forward to waking up at 6 a.m. on weekends to move my car for my roommate, who works the night shift as a nurse. And I know that she’s also REALLY looking forward to being awoken from her slumber to move her car so I can leave for work. Bottom line: this is the most ridiculous, overpriced, inconvenient, stupid parking situation I’ve ever heard of, and it’s completely ruined my living experience. The fact that they’ve changed their minds about how to run their business because they didn’t plan appropriately for a full building of residents with cars is what bothers me the most. I can’t wait for my lease to be up so I can escape this awful place.
Also, if you want to rent out the super sweet roof top area for a private party it’s like $ 1,000. Which is absurd. Once you fork over the money, you also won’t be given a sign to block the area off as a private party, so random residents will wander through your shindig and steal your food. Also you’ll have to station someone downstairs to let all your partygoers inside.
So in conclusion, don’t live here if: you want to live in a two bedroom and have two cars (you’ll be in my position), you want to live in a one bedroom and have two cars (you only get a single parking place, nada for your second car) or you want to live in a two bedroom with one car (you’ll have to pay $ 140 a month for a tandem spot). Just don’t live here.