Grove at Deane Hill Apartments

Here is why I write these reviews! Not a one has reviewed this place and I know for me moving down to Knoxville from up north, I could have used some insights!
Hubband and I initially really wanted to live downtown or in the 4^th and Gill area when we were looking for housing down here before our move. I was about to start grad school, we were moving from NYC, and we wanted something away from undergrads but close to downtown. Unfortunately on our two trips following Craigslist postings, we didn’t find anything that fit the bill. To two people completely clueless about Knoxville, many downtown places seemed either too expensive or too undergrad-​y (read: loud and dirty) or the surrounding areas seemed a little iffy safety and convenience-​wise.
The Grove was recommended as a nice place, with convenient access to the highway (and thus getting to school), and with a little more character than some of the other apartment complexes. I was loathe to live in a cookie-​cutter maze of a place, but we were running out of time and the Grove ended up being where we landed.
Pros: it is close to the highway; close to a grocery store and other convenient stores; it’s aesthetically beautiful; the staff is nice; it is for the most part very quiet and good for grad students and young professionals; it’s very convenient for package pickup, dry cleaning (though we never used that service), and mail; and they have a gym and pool; it’s reliable.
Cons: close to the highway, but in between it and the highway are about 3 of the worst traffic lights I have ever encountered, a large shopping strip on the left and the West Town Mall on the right (during the holidays it took 10 – 15 minutes in the traffic to get to the highway alone); it’s very homogenous – beige colored buildings with beige colored carpeting and beige laminate kitchen flooring; for a gated community (also a con in my book), not very safe! – there were numerous car break-​ins while we lived there and Hubband and I once saw a police BUS and a K-​9 unit parked outside of one of the buildings-​never heard what that was about.
In the end, Hubband and I moved downtown to a small condo building with rentals that we love. While the Grove provided us with 2 years of good service and a comfortable and beautiful place to live, ultimately the traffic and big-​box-​store-​y-​ness of West Knoxville wore us down.