Washington Plaza Apartments

We're stuck here for four more days, and I definitely won't book again. The refrigerator freezes everything, from eggs to sour cream and soda. There's no proper air conditioning, just a portable unit with a plastic window pipe held on with duct tape. Since it's in the bedroom, the living area stays hot and stuffy, especially when cooking in the kitchenette. The bathroom is so cramped that my disabled daughter struggles to use it, so we've had to go around the corner to the Mark Spencer lobby restroom. I managed to use the apartment toilet once, and it clogged. The shower is tiny and has nowhere to put toiletries. The front door chain is broken, and all the locks should work. The apartment looks much more dated in person than online. The kitchen is functional, but I covered the stained sofa with a blanket. Everything about this place feels old and bad.

I lived here from 2023-2024. Heidi, the on-site manager, was extremely helpful in my experience. She arranged a month-to-month lease at the same price after my original lease ended and got me a full-size fridge. There are plenty of laundry machines, and loads cost about half what I've seen in other apartment buildings. Some washers did stay out of service for a long time, and my phone occasionally wouldn't connect to the machines. A few things to consider: finding a place to park a truck for move-in is a pain, though you can bring furniture and boxes in from street level without stairs to the elevator. Cigarette smoke is common in this part of downtown. Depending on your unit, you may smell it through the window even when nobody's smoking in the courtyard, and I often smelled it in my apartment during summer with the AC in the window. Loud cars, possibly street racers, frequently went by late at night. I imagine it's loudest on the Washington street side, but I can't say how it is in the other units.

The building is close to public transit, which was probably its best feature. The shared hallways and common areas looked recently renovated and were very clean, but the room itself was shabby and the furniture dated. There was hair in the bathroom and shampoo residue on the shower floor, dirty walls with a drippy-looking stain, and heavily marked lampshades. The bed and sheets, at least, were clean and nice. The room was in a renovated apartment building, and the Mark Spencer hotel seemed to handle some operations, like check-in. I couldn't tell who cleaned the rooms. It had a floor air conditioner with a tube out the window, plus a mini fridge, small range, and stove. There were some plates, pans, and cooking utensils. I wouldn't recommend staying because of the cleanliness and old furniture.

The staff at the Mark Spencer hotel, where guests are sent to check in, were very nice. Customer service wasn't the problem. My room looked nothing like the photos on the booking site. There was a strange smell and long dark hairs on the bed. I couldn't find an AC unit, only a very loud ceiling fan that kept waking me up. The bathroom was so small that a tall person would have no room to move. Parking was also a bad fit for our dodge ram. I booked because a concert venue was conveniently down the street, but if you're after a modern, nicer place, this isn't it.