Venue

Don’t know where these low reviews came from but this place is AWESOME! Great modern apartments that make you feel at ease. I’ve seen a lot of apartments in my day and let me tell you, it doesn’t get much better than the staff at Venue. They couldn’t be more wonderful if they tried (Edwin, Cyndee & Evelyn). Very friendly, kind & accommodating. This place is also in a great location with short walks to AT&T park, hip bars for your average 21 to 30 year old (don’t shun me if you’re over 30 and go to a bar).
Bottom line, skip the rest and check out Venue. Thank me later.

Great location, friendly staff, mostly quiet, decent amenities, and great aesthetics.
I’ve been living here since April 2014 as one of the first tenants. There have been a few hiccups here and there, but overall, it’s been a good experience. I can’t comment on hearing upstairs neighbors since I live on the top floor, but I’ve never received any complaints either.
They have decent amenities such as a clubhouse, gym (a little on the small side), large courtyard with a fireplace and BBQ grills, dry cleaning service, cooking classes, monthly mixers, etc. Although the weather in SF is generally colder than the rest of the Bay Area, a pool would have been a nice touch. Also, a doorman would be useful to greet guests and let them up so I don’t have to come down.
To comment on Gene’s complaint about entering units without consent: management has always given notice if they need to access my unit. I’ve never had an experience where they entered without consent or notice.
You get for what you pay for, and what you get are:
— Amazing location! You’re walking distance from Caltrain, Philz, Safeway, work (if you work in SoMa), Muni, restaurants, bars, AT&T Park, UCSF, and more. You’re also a short drive from the freeway, Whole Foods, downtown, Embarcadero, Dogpatch, and eventually the new Warriors stadium.
— Amazing weather! Unlike the southern and western ends of SF where it’s always cloudy, it’s mostly sunny in Mission Bay.
— Up and coming neighborhood. In my opinion, Mission Bay is the next up and coming neighborhood in SF. Right now, it’s quiet, clean, with lots of potential. But with The Market Hall opening soon, it will be the catalyst for more retailers to open up shop (e.g. coffee shops, restaurants, boutique clothing stores, etc.)

We lived here for a year with my husband and we loved this building.
Pros:
— You practically live in downtown without all the noise and mess
— AT&T Stadium is about 5 minutes walk
— The clubhouse is beautiful and you can book it for free!
— They have «breakfast to go» every Friday morning
— They organize a monthly mixer with nibbles and wines
— They have cooking classes twice a month
— They have a herb garden you can use
— The staff is very nice and always helpful
Cons:
— It’s a wooden structure so you can hear your neighbors walking but this is pretty much the case with all other buildings with laminate floors
— Rates are going up crazy due to the location
As for the privacy issues mentioned by Gene I have to disagree. They never enter the apartment without your consent and never touch any of your stuff. Not sure what happened there but as far as I know none of the Venue apartments were damaged in the fire. (We moved in 2 weeks after the fire.)

My review is based on the leasing experience as I did not end up living at Venue.
I had made an appointment to meet with Zachary in the leasing office on a Friday morning. My previous appointment had gone faster than I had anticipated so I stopped by hoping that I could see the property a little early. Zachary had mistaken me for the property owner and handed me documents that outlined all of the problems with the building. Items listed were broken and leaky pipes, drywall cracks, and cracked flooring. I have to be honest, I was a little concerned to see so many problems with a new building. I told Zachary that I was a prospective tenant and handed him back his list of problems. On to the review.
The building does have nice looking apartments that have modern finished and appliances. The views from the available units faced the courtyard. You basically have a nice view of your neighbors across the way. Not what I was looking for. The bathrooms all had very funky looking medicine cabinets that were attached to the side wall. Made for a bit of an eye sore. Amenity wise the gym and the outdoor space seemed very plastic. I also overheard a tenant complaining about noisy neighbors to another leasing agent. This would lead me to believe that the walls are a bit thin.
The building is nice but I ended up going with a different building that had more amenities, better views, and an overall better leasing experience.

Moved out half a year ago and wanted to summarize my experiences.
In brief, living at Venue has been the one single worst lodging-​related decision and experience I’ve had in my short 30 years of life. It does sound really hyperbolic and it’s really unfortunate since the building itself is sparkling new, everything’s really clean, well decorated, decently furnished, great location and the staff are really nice. There’s only really one single negative factor and it is mortal. The noise coming from upstairs packs just the right amount of punch and delivers the right explosiveness to keep you engaged in adrenaline pumping fight or flight mode for the one place in your life where you need some shelter from stress.
Noise complaints are super subjective and really hard to gauge so it’s totally normal to question whether the person complaining is just a weirdo hyper sensitive hermit so I’ll do my best to quantify it for you to judge for yourself. I made a brief count and this is the 18^th place I lived in and I’ve lived in some shitty places in the past. I’ve stayed in micro-​apartments big enough for just one bed for 300 $ a month. I’ve stayed in units permanently permeated in cigarette smoke from adjacent units. Places where it’s –40 outside and all the windows leak. Places so poorly insulated that I can hear every single drop of piss rippling in the water when the person upstairs takes a leak. But nothing comes close to this. Venue is also more costly than the next 3 most expensive places I’ve stayed combined but money isn’t really a factor here. It is objectively the most unsuitable place for habitation I’ve been at.
To go back to why this might be, I can only piece information together. The neighborhood is booming. New construction is everywhere and you’d notice looking at buildings under construction they’re built pretty much the same way. Wood frame 4 – 6 stories with the first or the first 2 floors in concrete. Nothing too special here. Wooden buildings are noisy. But what else they’ve done is that they did neither let the subfloor be wooden and let the air insulate the sound nor did they encase the units in concrete or in underlayment and insulation. Instead they did something funky and poured one inch of concrete between the floors that doesn’t block any sounds but definitely make every step a hard bang-​on impact. They also opted for open plans and minimal structural walls which makes the room big drum pads.
The booming sounds from every footsteps trigger such a primal instinctual reaction of dropping everything and getting ready to fend for your life that you can forget trying to engage in any activities that require any higher cerebral functions than washing dishes. It’s so disruptive that I always try to get out of having to host anyone because it’s impossible to keep a train of thought uninterrupted long enough to have a coherent conversation. The emotional distress manifest so physically that I’d get stomach aches thinking that the weekend has arrived and I would spend more time in the apartment. I haven’t had a real night’s sleep 95% of the year I’ve lived there and the ear muffs I wear to sleep makes the ear protections you wear at gun ranges looks like infant squirrel’s toys (not to mention the ear plugs I wear under it and the white noise generator I play over it). The building is so structurally unsound that all my dishes rattle and my own floor shakes when the person upstairs walks.
And the worst is there is no real antagonist here. The person upstairs hasn’t done anything wrong except to also pay through their nose to live at Venue and to walk normally. Sure you can implore them as charitable individuals to have mercy and tip toe around instead of focusing on starting a family and any of that dullness but that only gets you so far. And the building management truly can’t do anything either if you really think it through. Their lawyer concluded and I agree that there really is no resort except to either install sound measuring devices and file paperworks for months to evict someone for walking in their own home or to raze the building and rebuild it. They tried to force people to buy large area carpets but that’s like a drop in an ocean. I certainly hope I’m not the crazy guy in this story either. I normally sleep through the night like a baby outdoor in –40 with nothing but a single tarp tent and a cooking stove. 5 elephants stomped through our camping ground once and I totally slept through it. The noise here is just totally next level. Perhaps the only antagonist here is the bribed city building code engineer who let this building be built in the first place.
Other minor issue. Was charged for repainting the unit from my security deposit after moving out. A bit absurd since I definitely left the unit cleaner than I got it in. There was fire ashes from the building across that burnt down all over the unit when I got it. It’s just externalizing the normal cost of operating the business.

Pet friendly. Reasonable price. Modern style. Close to safeway for grocery and mission creek park for dog walk. Not to mention for giant games at att park with walking distance. Staff have been really helpful so far. Havent had any issues so far. Place is new, so we should give them some room to have mistakes so they could improve. This area gonna be crowded and famous. Move in people before everything got booked.

First Unilocal review ever, feel I must review.
Everyone is super nice but had bad experience. As many know one of the Strata complexes burned down and I guess there was some concern about damage to some units at Venue. Received a notice almost 2 weeks ago saying they will need to enter our unit for a visual inspection, didn’t notice the email but here are my issues.
* Day prior they sent a mass email to everyone saying inspections will occur to exterior and interior of the building but no unit will be entered. Why would you send this out at all unless you are notifying that your unit will not be entered?
* No notice left outside our door prior to entry, I feel they should have left a notice at least a day prior.
* No notice was left after they entered our unit.
* Doors left closed were left open after they came in.
* Window was closed that was left open.
* Closet door was open, was it really necessary to look in my closet?
* Posted on community board to ask if anyone else’s unit got inspected and it was censored. YAY FOR CENSORSHIP!!!
Who knows what else they may have went through. This was a complete invasion of my privacy!
If you don’t care about all these issues; then the place is new, clean, nice amenities, close to grocery store, etc… Nothing has been built up around it yet, but that will change. It is loud, neighboring construction but knew that moving in, so no stars removed for that. Only one star due to invasion of privacy… otherwise I would give the place 5 stars.

We had a great experience touring this building, although we did not end up at Venue, it was our 2^nd choice.
The leasing agent was so nice and welcoming! Its the people that make places like VENUE a gem!