Anyone heard about Archstone Newport Village in Alexandria? (apartment, leasing)

[vbradley]

I'm going to be moving into a one bedroom apt in Archstone Newport Village in Alexandria pretty soon. I've been there to see it a few times and what I've seen has been really nice and clean. BUT I went to some apartment rating sites online earlier and there were tons of complaints about them. Has anyone lived there/heard about them?...now I'm worried.

Thanks!

[akorosdc]

I lived there for a year (literally just moved out this past weekend) and really liked it. I saw the ratings but honestly didn't have any experience like that at all. In general, it's a nice-sized apartment in a good area. Driving-wise, it's very convenient. You're near 2 exits for 395, 15 minutes from Old Town, 10 from Pentagon City, took me 15 minutes to get to L'Enfant during rush hour. There's 3 shopping malls within 15 minutes and a crazy number of grocery stores (I swear, there must be 5 or 6 in a 2-mile radius).

And the negatives. Yes, the leasing office can be a bit of a pain. If you call during business hours and no one picks up, keep hitting redial constantly. It only takes 2 or 3 tries until someone gets irritated enough to pick up. There are a couple who are good (Tammy is one), others you may have to press on a bit. Overall though, it's not that bad. We didn't really have much break, so it was more of a general annoyance than a big problem. The floors/ceilings are very thin, I could hear the little boy sing nursery rhymes downstairs when I went to bed, but we got used to it pretty quickly.

That's pretty much it. On the ratings I remember something about sketchy people hanging out in the parking lot. Yes, there's a group of young guys that do hang out there, but that's really all they're doing. My roommate came home later at night by herself often and never had a problem (not even a catcall or two). Don't be too worried. It's not exactly "top-class", but it's far far FAR from the worst. We only moved because we needed to be closer to the metro for work. Otherwise, we would have gladly renewed our lease.

Let me know if you have any questions about the complex or the area (Romanza Pizza--the sign says "New York Pizza"--is very good, and there's a good Chinese place in the Fox Chase Shopping Center; Safeway's better than the Giant at Bradlee, and it's open 24 hours), let me know