The National Residences

Where do I even begin with this property?! The amenities are nice but overpriced! The rent portal site charges an astronomical "fee" for processing, with no indication of what the fee is used for. I'm talking an additional $100 on top of your rent. To break my lease was over $12k. The elevators are SLOWWWW! Parking garage had a leak that ruined the paint on my car. I could continue but I'm running out of characters, DONT MOVE HERE!

PLEASE READ BEFORE RENTING! If you do decide to do a tour please challenge the tour guide with everything stated in this review to see if I’m not being honest. I stayed a year at National and would like to leave an honest review of this apartment. The price of this apartment is not worth it. The only reason most people stay is because they do not feel like moving Below are the following reasons: L 1. Once you sign the lease the management will show their true colors of being rude and arrogant for no reason. 2. The National DOESN’T OWN anything but the apartment rooms. a. They do not own the pool (It is owned by The Thompson, and it’s not heated) Please touch the water during your tour b. They will tell you valet is free to residence that is a LIE. That is also owned by The Thompson, they charge the resident $20! You are better off saying you are going to a restaurant than saying you are going to see someone that actually stays there. They will charge you $10 if you going into a restaurant. 3. The price you are paying for at the National is mainly for the amenities and 60% of the amenities doesn’t even work and as stated as above they do not OWN ANY OF THOSE THINGS. a. The golf simulator screen is discolored. You literally have to throw the golf ball with your hand for the screen to react to the ball. b. The golf clubs are a joke, just see for yourself. c. The miniature golf course is barely kept up, just see for yourself d. The Theater room NEVER WORKED! It was missing the iPad for majority of the year lease. If you do the tour, PLEASE ASK THEM IF THEY CAN TURN THE THEATER SCREEN ON. You will thank me later e. Only ONE of the four grills work! You will need to manually light a piece of paper to start the grill and that’s only for one of them. PLEASE ASK THEM TO TURN ON ALL OF THE GRILLS, you will thank me later f. They say you get discounts, you don’t get any discounts at the restaurants but to the 4. Being that the building is very big, and is mostly owned by The Thompson and other companies. Anybody can visit the building. a. At night, young kids will hang by the last grill and smoke weed. b. Any and everybody can come to the pool being that The National doesn’t OWN ANYTHING. 5. The Management is not professional at all. The only thing they are good at are responding and denying any type of request a resident ask for. Anything else, they are terrible at doing. THE ELEVATORS ARE NEVER WORKING

They sent a $115 charge to collections after they closed our national account leaving us no way to pay it online. My wife and I are almost always out of town so we couldn't bring in a check. It was less than 2 months before getting collections call. We didn't get any sort of warning just a surprise hit to our credit and a permanent mark on our rental history. Absolutely insane.

Living here is such a cool experience. The management has always taken care of business, and been very polite. First off you’re living in a hotel. The lobby is beautiful and always wonderfully decorated. The building has some of the most desired restaurants in Dallas, trendy night life, and all access amenities. From room service, valet, dry cleaning, car service to Love Field, discounted rates for spa services (which you don’t even have to leave the building) and hotel rooms, etc. Also in comparing all pools to the National/Thompson this pool is the best in the city by far. Whether the Ritz, Crescent Hotel, or other high end residential living, this pool is huge. There is so much room in the pool, there are huge pool decks, giant umbrellas, the wait staff, the full access bar, connected to Nine restaurant, huge cabanas. The best thing about the pool is there is no access other than hotel guests and residents that may bring a guest. It’s not a big noisy mess like so many other hotel pools. All the beautiful patio decks with the views can be accessed 24 hours. As well as a great gym with an outside workout area. There are so many places to walk to as downtown continues grow and explode with all types of restaurants and night life. Some weekends I never get in a car! There’s the trendy night life and restaurants at The National or you can walk one to two blocks for laid backed restaurants, bars, and the super nice ATT Discover District with food options two blocks away. There are beautiful churches within a block or two. the best cupcakes in the city are right across the street! At times elevators sometimes make frequent stops in a 50 story tower, however the views from my place are amazing. The National has to have the best views of the city in every direction. I love the parking here as the spaces are huge compared to other parking garages I have encountered. There is so much more I could write. Upon touring all those other high end high-rises after living here, I realized I would just be going home to an apartment. When you come home to this building, you come back to so much more than just an apartment. There’s no comparison in getting what you are paying for after touring the other super expensive high end high rises. If all the options are going to be super pricey I’m going with everything The National building offers, and their outstanding management/concierge team which none of the other residential high rise buildings compared in my opinion.

The air conditioner went out this summer, and a lot of us how to stay in a hotel some for weeks in months. The elevators are consistently broken and residents are always getting stuck on them along with the parking garage door. Downtown isn’t the safest and it seems the garage is broken more than it’s fix. Look elsewhere as they nickle and dime on chargers they don’t tell you like HVAC charges, also the most expensive amenity fee in dallas at $115 a month and they just tried charging for parking for your guest. Talk with other residents before you sign the lease.

Do NOT put your card on file as a resident. I have had multiple false charges. I had 2 charges which equaled to $97.42 for “valet” when it is free to residents. I called the Thompson hotel desk and they said I must have taken valet, when I have not used valet. I am not the only resident that this has happened to. They also charged me TWICE for the spa 2 days apart. I was told on 2/22/22 that I would be refunded the $422.43 that they charged, and they STILL haven’t refunded back, today is 3/10/22. The National Residences can not assist due to it being with Thompson Hotel amenity side so I can only blame the Thompson Hotel. The multiple emails, SLOW responses, and no call backs from Thompson Hotel desk/manager is ridiculous. Although this is a nice place to live, if you leave your card on file, they will place false charges on account.

We entered the elevator on floor 27 to get my vehicle from the valet on the 2nd floor. Once we reached floor 9, the elevator immediately dropped to floor 4, I immediately reached out to the concierge to make them aware of the situation, to alert them that I had my 2 elderly grandparents who are also guests of The Thompson hotel dallas at this time. My grandmother has also had a full knee reconstruction in the past week which made the situation critical as her legs began to weaken over the extended waiting period.  After phoning several times, we were told there was no ETA as they needed to find someone who could address the issues, which indicates that off property personnel had not been notified because we had already been there 20-30 minutes. We assumed that on property emergency engineering was capable of correcting the issue, however, after another call was made to them we learned that off property personnel were still being located and emergency services were called to the scene. As this is happening, the oxygen level is diminished in the elevator and both people and animals are now in distress and panicking as no progress has been made during this now 45 minute period of waiting. Once emergency services were on the scene, we had to be manually removed from the top of the elevator after the glass ceiling had to be forcibly removed by the fire department. We were each able to climb through the elevator shaft to exit into the onto the fourth floor of the resident garage but due to my grandmothers condition, I was forced to leave her alone crying in the elevator since emergency services had to remove her with a pulley system as her body was in no condition to physically move. During the removal, she has incurred facial damage due to elevator wiring and additional damage and pain to her knee during the rescue. After a check of vitals, EMS took my grandmother back to her room at the Thompson hotel dallas (room 2002) where she was able to finally diguest what had happened. During this rescue, there were about 20 firefighters on site to help along with 1 security personnel to help direct traffic in the garage. After this incident, we were not once contacted by anyone onsite. I learned that management had been aware of the situation but “didn’t know much detail.” My main concern is around how this was handled, and the fact that a person's well being was out right disregarded and not once did any staff take the initiative.

I would suggest looking elsewhere if you are looking for upscale downtown living. The units were poorly built and when I moved in I had several major issues that took months for maintenance and management to address. Prime example is when it rains the dog park always floods and it’s a disgusting sewer river. Also the owner of the property feels it’s ok to yell at residents when then are breaking rules they were unaware of. Management is always changing things and never informing residents. I moved in March to this building and am still waiting for amenities to be available that were advertised as available over 7 months ago.