AVA Belltown

The staff at AVA Belltown are amazing! They are what gives this apartment building energy, friendliness and makes it feel like home. From Kendra to Amanda to Emily to the rest of the building staff, they make it great to live here. Amanda is always so cheerful, professional and super helpful. Whether it’s managing a package delivery to ensuring a maintainace request is filled to just seeing how your day has been, she always goes above and beyond for her residents.
The location of AVA Belltown can’t be beat! The apartments are good size and you really feel like you’re living in a community. I highly recommend this building!

Me and my wife moved in over a year ago and just love this place. Great with dogs and the staff/​management are sooo great. The views are awesome and the fact that it is so close to downtown is a big +. I would and have recommended this place.

I’ve lived here for 3 years now. Our apartment faces in to the courtyard.
* Hot/​Cold: Mildly warm. Lack of airflow means using the kitchen makes the place pretty warm. We’ve never use the heater. No A/​C in the units but the building itself has A/​C which is most effective in the lobby.
* Sunny/​Shady: We get indirect light reflected off the building behind us. In the morning we don’t get direct sunlight. This means nothing fades and the apartment is relatively cool in summer minus the building itself warming up.
* Noisy/​Quiet: Very quiet inside the apartments. Never hear the neighbors having sex, unlike the last place. In the hallway you can hear the dogs crying but inside the apartment you pretty much never hear anyone or anything. The guy down the hall plays loud music at all hours but I only hear it when going to the elevator. You hear the Duck tours going past, but not the trains that roll through. I’ve lived in multiple apartments in this area and this is definitely the quietest. People sometimes say they can hear me running around with my dog in the hallway but no one complains.
* Cost: High, but average for Belltown. Rent increases were average or below Seattle’s average for the time we were here.
* Pets: Yes. Dogs and cats. They have a list of breeds not allowed. There is a per-​month rental fee.
* Apartment amenities: Washer, Drier, Microwave, Oven, 4 burner electric stove, fridge+freezer, computer desk
* Community amenities: Outdoor grill + furniture, WiFi in the lobby, gym. Storage lockers available for a fee. No view of the sound (would be blocked by the Olympus anyway). Concierge service — they sign for the packages.
* Parking: typical small Belltown parking spots on the upper parking level. I’ve seen a guy in a F350 fit his car in one of the end spots but he was pretty good at parking. $ 125 per month.
* Staff: Are awesome. Kendra is amazing. Harry left for another property, but he was amazing too. They will lend you a hand cart on request.
* Elevators: 2 elevators, one is a freight elevator for moving in, the other just a regular one. The elevator has a high ceiling so you can move in long objects more easily.
* Security: Average. No scanning a fob for the elevator but the front door is call box and fob activated. No homeless people sleeping on the front door. Windows have remained intact the entire time we’ve been here, unlike The Audrey next door which had its windows smashed at least annually.
* Other: I shouldn’t have to say this, but read the contract carefully; the month-​by-​month lease rates are pretty high and it is a legally binding contract. Yes, sometimes a 12 month lease will cost more than a 9 month lease, which is common for this area (The Audrey and The Olympus will also do this). Be aware that AVA an The Audrey company are two different entities and some things may just be out of the staff’s control. That being said, if they can help they generally will and we’re only moving because my wife got a new job outside of the city.

We have been tenants here for almost two years. The building is great, clean and well maintained. Dog friendly, with potty bags and treats for your four legged pal by the door! Front desk is receptive and friendly, Kendra and her staff go above and beyond. Sometimes dealing with the giant corporation that is Avalon can be frustrating, she is remarkably helpful with navigating through the BS. When we were looking for apartments I looked on Unilocal for feedback and one of my concerns was the neighborhood. In our two years we’ve definitely run into some characters here and there, but the location near the super clean and well kept safe Olympic sculpture park really is great. We bought a house or we would stay, we have loved being so close to so many restaurants and the waterfront.

I wish I could just post this feedback without any star rating. I didn’t end up living here, and here’s why.
1. The rent changes by the day: I called and then stopped by to tour a place recently. The apartment looked fine enough — and it has a great location, and a cool vibe and gym — but the leasing agent told me the quoted price was only good for 24 hours. They change that number on a daily basis, depending on inventory. If something else rents in the building that day? The price goes up, since inventory goes down.
2. It would’ve *cost more* to sign a 12-​month lease: Yes, you read that correctly. The 9-​month lease was $ 15/​month cheaper. She said this was to deter too many people from moving out at the same time. So, because too many people had leases coming up a year from now, they make the 9 month lease cheaper than the 12 month lease.
3. Move-​out fees: after reading horror stories on here, I emailed the leasing agent to clarify. What she emailed made it seem like it would be at least $ 200 for a 1-​BR. Here’s here email, verbatim:
‘When it comes to moving out we expect the apartment to be in the same condition as it was when you moved in, minus any normal wear and tear. The 3 primary items that are charged for, is apartment cleaning, carpet cleaning, and paint. We have a move out process that includes a pre move out inspection with our maintenance tech to go over estimated costs that pertain to your apartment. This is done about 2 weeks before your vacate date. Typically a one bedroom apartment is $ 110 for cleaning, $ 65 for carpet cleaning, and the painting is $ 18.79 per hour plus the cost of material, ie. paint and primer. This can changed depending on our vendors we use, but it’s usually similar prices. There is additional cost if there was damage to the apartment, like stains on carpets, pet damage, holes in doors, etc. We are constantly trying to improve our move out process so that people are educated on the cost it takes to make an apartment ready after someone moves out. We don’t make any money from the move out costs and when people disagree with the charges they assume we are trying to more money, when in reality it goes straight to our vendors.‘
My point is… just read the fine print, folks, and know what you’re getting into, no matter where you move.

I broke my lease 2 months early as I purchased a house and opted for the accelerated rent, ie: paying the rent until the unit is rented again or the time due is up. They told me they would try and rent it again. They didn’t, and I was informed that someone was moving in 1 day after the end of the lease! I’m paying for what I signed for, fine, but don’t blatantly lie to your tenants, that is disrespectful and insulting.
I will never trust AVA for anything ever again!

This place is great, and we love living here! Moved in mid-​March, and immediately realized our place was too small, the staff (Kendra and Danielle) bent over backward to help us move to a larger unit, and gave us so much leeway on the costs to change units while also accommodating our work schedules.
We hunted the Belltown, downtown, and Queen Anne areas for nearly two months before choosing AVA Belltown. These are the things we were looking for and why we decided to stay here:
1. Security — don’t want to worry about my wife and baby while deployed
2. Walk ability — my wife can walk our dog around, and at the park just 2 blocks away, and we can literally eat at a different, great restaurant in walking distance every week
3. Gym — just enough to get a good workout on the days we want to stay inside
4. Parking — huge item! Parking at other places BARELY fits the car and they charge much more. Here the parking is cheap comparatively, and the spaces are wide enough that we’re not crammed putting a baby seat in
5. Space — we didn’t want a tiny apartment, we got a lot of sq. ft. for the price, and with a beautiful view of the lake and sunset
6. Walk in closets — a must have for my wife
Some advice for people who are moving here, and downtown in general from someone who spent a lot of time on Unilocal and other sites trying to find the best place: people seem to complain about things a lot, but I think that is most likely because they don’t have their expectations set right. Understand that these places are businesses and they don’t want to lose money. The places will be very expensive, because the neighborhood is desirable. When you move out, just take the standard charges they offer for cleaning instead of paying someone a bundle to clean your place because they may not clean it to standard, and you may get charged from your deposit anyway. Sometimes you lose phone signal: that’s what happens when you live downtown. You’ll hear some traffic noise, if you don’t like that, don’t live downtown.
But if you’re up for it, it’s great! Nice city views of Seattle, great running path 2 blocks away, great places to eat, short walk to space needle, great staff, friendly neighbors, and the list goes on. We love it.

Lived here in my early 20s before it was re-​branded «Ava.» Really enjoyed my time there. Had a two bedroom with an epic deck space that had a view of the space needle. This place was quiet (aside from some street noise) and a fun area. Not sure about safety in Belltown these days or their current management, but back in the day, this was a solid apartment.

Management lies.
Called the leasing office in April, was told that they could rent me an apartment for 3.5 months, and would prorate move in and move out months. Decided that was perfect! They told me they would let the apartment manager know and they would contact me. The next day the manager calls me and in the process of going over pricing, says there is no possible way they are prorating the move in month, but that they will still prorate move out. I’m obviously upset that I have to pay an extra $ 1500, but decide it’s still worth it. Now, I’m moving out in 1 month, and I get told there’s no way they can prorate the move out month. What the heck! They are getting an extra $ 3000 from me!!! This is completely too much, and I can’t believe they lied to my face so often. They keep saying «sorry for the miscommunication». Sure.

PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF THE HEARTACHE AND FRUSTRATION OF LIVING HERE. I reviewed Avalon Belltown back in November. Unfortunatly, my lease goes through Feb. of 2011 so I’m forced to live here till then. As a result of the management company losing my packages before I tried to remedy the problem by not allowing them to accept packages. Well, instead of telling UPS to deliver directly to me because of the issue they took it upon themselves to return all packages delivered to me back to sender. This has turned into an all day nightmare of tracking five seperate Christmas gifts I purchased. AND to make matters worse one of the packages shows it was delivered to the office and of course they say they don’t have it. In addition, a few days ago the management called my boyfriend asking for a copy of our rental insurance. It’s mandatory this be provided upon move in and we did just that. Now it seems this is another thing they’ve lost and they had the audacity to call us and ask for another copy. I’m sure the insurance document had private information on it that shouldn’t be floating around out there. Finally, I have been asking the manager Amanda for her supervisor’s phone number for months at this point. She has only given me a general number that goes to voicemail or she’s told me she can email them to contact me. I have never gotten a call back. Today, I finally said enough is enough and contacted another Avalon property that provided me in 30 seconds her regional managers name and phone number. I have since left a message. The management here is ridiculous. I haven’t had a single positive transaction with them. I pay my rent on time and get nothing in return.