The Ella Scott's Addition

I moved into the Ella in July 2021. During move-in, The Ella was still under construction and I knew that so I was aware that things related to construction would occur for the first few months of my lease such as jackhammering, fire alarm tests etc. However, it is now January 2022 and the construction is nowhere near done. I was told that the restaurants and shops on the first level would be complete by September 2021 and their completion is nowhere in sight. Also, The Ella has an extreme problem with impromptu fire alarms at awful times of the day. If you work from home, I strongly discourage you from living here. As for other broken promises, I was told parking would be free with my lease. However, once they filled all the apartments, they rescinded their promise and began to charge for parking. Other than that, the quality of the appliances within the units are not up to par. I treat my unit extremely well and submit service requests frequently in order to maintain everything. Within 6 months, my blinds broke (which required two service requests to fix - the first one being ignored altogether), my dishwasher failed to close causing fluids to leak every time I was my dishes. Also, the first two weeks I lived here, I was without wifi even though I was once again promised wifi would be available when I moved in. I have never complained or left a public review like this but the behavior displayed by the building and its management is unacceptable. I am currently writing this review while a fire alarm is going off at 10:40am on a Sunday and it's been going on for over10 minutes now. I strongly encourage other prospective tenants to look elsewhere for a "luxury apartment". I will not be resigning my lease.

Don’t move here. save yourself some money and headaches … figuratively and literally. The fire alarm was just blaring for almost an hour at 7 in the evening! Not the first time! My head is pounding. And Shocker, no actual emergency.

At this point I would recommend that anyone looking for a newer apartment community centrally located in Richmond check out the Ella. While it took a little longer than everyone expected for construction to be complete, the leasing office has been very responsive when I've need to reach out to them and overall did a good job resolving some parking and mail issues that came up as the building filled up. The amenities, including the pool, are top notch for the Richmond and the location is super convenient to Scott's, the Fan/Museum District and areas like Willow Lawn. The noise dampening between my apartment and the unit above is lacking, which is a shame. Otherwise it's been pretty quiet, at least in my section of the building, which is important since I work from home. Parking isn't bad - you pay $60 for a reserved, covered space or just use the general parking spots. Guest parking is fine as long as no one arrives too late in the evening.

Really disappointed so far. Was excited to move here, but it’s been one disappointment after another. Construction was promised to be done at the end of August. It’s November and construction isn’t nearly finished. They also start working super early like 6am or 7am which is noisy and wakes me up. The complex doesn’t look like what it was marketed as on their website. Apartments also don’t look the same as was marketed on their website. They’re nice but not THAT nice. There’s constantly trash and dog poop everywhere. Especially on the weekends. Broken bottles of alcohol. Food trash left in parking lot. Apartments are not well sound insulated at all nor were they constructed well. There was paint all over our floors upon move in as well as construction dust. There’s not enough parking for everyone living here and they’re telling us to go park 3 blocks down the street. I do not feel at all safe doing that at night as a woman. They reserved like half of the parking and are trying to charge $75/month for it but no one wants to pay that so the spots just sit empty. The package room is a chaotic mess. It seems impossible to find anything and neighbors are consistently reporting things getting stolen or going missing. There's no organization and packages are just thrown anywhere and everywhere. I’ve had several packages go missing or get stolen. One of the elevator breaks at least once a week and it is the ONLY elevator that goes to our floor, which makes us take 5 flights of stairs. Would not recommend living here. Had high expectations and have been consistently let down. Definitely not worth the price.

Do. Not. Live. Here. The leasing office continually has excuses for every complaint the residents have instead of having empathy and admitting this has not been an enjoyable place to live. When I originally signed my leased, I was told construction was ahead of schedule and should be completed by the end of July or early August at the latest. It’s now the end of October and I’m currently listening to a jackhammer right outside my window while the construction workers drill up a brand new sidewalk for reasons that haven’t been communicated. I would have never ever signed my lease if I had known this is what it would be like to live here. I work from home and my work is constantly interrupted by construction or maintenance or various other things which is how I pay my rent to live here. They rushed to get apartments completed first so they could begin collecting rent and there is plaint spatters everywhere and my bathroom is covered in random globs of plaster. Amenities still aren’t completed. Parking is a complete mess. I’ve continually taken my concerns to the leasing office for a rent discount until construction is completed which has been ignored, although I’ve been told numberous times that “we’re willing to do anything to make our residents happy”. I moved here because the Ella is owned by steelhead and I have many friends that live at other steelhead properties that are happy where they live so I didn’t think I would have such a negative experience. If it wasn’t such an inconvenience to me to pay to break my lease and move again then I 100% would.

This property is overpriced compared to other places in Scott's Addition. The Ella has the exact same concept of every other apartment complex in the area but is more expensive than most. Utilities are not included, there is a fee for trash pickup and just recently a hefty monthly parking fee has been implemented (free parking was promised on move in day). There are several amenities advertised on the Ella's website that are not actually available. The main parking lot of the Ella will be shared with a neighboring hotel that still is heavily under construction.