Sylvan Heights by Hosteeva

At $150 a night, I’m sure you can find somewhere better, with staff on site and cable or dish TV. Here, there’s only a smart TV with apps in the living room. We had to give them photos of both sides of our licenses and a selfie, which seemed odd. The apartment looked nice, but it’s a one-bedroom, not a condo. The balcony shown in the pictures is only on the apartments facing the parking lot, not the front. You need three codes to get in, and getting locked in or out could be a concern. The lot is shared by three buildings, two owned by Station 40 and one by someone else, so you may not find a space when you return from food or sightseeing. The address is confusing too: 4001 is an office at the front, while the entrance at the back is actually 601. The lock was easy to figure out when entering, but securing it when leaving takes two steps, and they sent no instructions. We had to call and wait for someone to call back. There’s no elevator, and the rooms are up four flights of stairs. They did mention that and send a picture of the entrance hours before check-in, but only by email. We don’t use our phone for email, so we had to call to find the entrance and learn how to secure the room. That made for a bad start. The windows are paper-thin, and it’s not in the best part of town. Metro police sirens and people revving cars without mufflers woke us several times a night. They act like they’re guarding the gold at Fort Knox, but the place isn’t worth all that. They say cancelling isn’t an issue, yet we had to go home and forfeit the second night. Check-in at 4 p.m. and checkout at 10 a.m. is far from the usual noon-to-noon schedule we’ve had elsewhere.

There are several places to eat within walking distance for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, plus a coffee shop. The entrance for Uber or Lyft drop-offs is behind the building, directly behind Farm Burger, and a ride to downtown or the Broadway area was about $11 on average. We’d stay here again. The place is basically a one-bedroom apartment in a safe area, with more room than a typical hotel. There are several closets for luggage or hanging clothes, a full-size fridge, microwave, coffee maker, oven, and washer/dryer. The weather was cool enough for us to open the French doors to the balcony.

Kevin is a great guy, and the customer service was excellent. My stay was lovely. The place was super clean, with plenty of space, a huge smart TV and lots of apps. It’s in a nice, quiet area with convenient restaurants downstairs.

The apartment has plenty of space, but the cleaning was below standard. Cars on the street and a train passing near the building make for some noise. Customer service was very poor, and it was hard to get a response.