The Square on Butler

After 2 years, I still love living at Doughboy Square. The floorplan layout is spacious and full of light and the building is quiet. Public spaces are well maintained and management is very responsive to communication. Everyone who has visited me says it's the best choice I could have made. Add to that the perfect location and fabulous Senti restaurant downstairs and it makes for an ideal place to live in beautiful Pittsburgh.

The good: The units are very nice, rent is affordable for a newer apartment building in Lawrenceville, and the rental community is quiet and full of young professionals. The bad: Right away we felt like something must be wrong given the high ratio of available units to rented units. People seemed to be moving out as if they were fleeing a burning building. It didn't help our suspicions that prices for a 2-bedroom apartment in Lawrenceville were so shockingly low compared to other comparable 2-bedrooms in the area, plus they were running major promotions such as a year of free parking and 1-mo free rent. It quickly became clear that the major problem here is management. The property manager, Carol, is unpleasant and unhelpful. Instead of responding to your questions or concerns, she just continues to repeat her original point, completely ignoring any new information you present to her. Multiple people I've talked to share this concern and report encounters with Carol leave them frustrated and their problems unresolved. If you have the misfortune of needing to contact multiple members of the management team, they do not seem to communicate with one another and instead provide you with conflicting information with no attempt to resolve the disparities.

I lived in DBS for a little more than 2 years. I thought it was an excellent place to live. Very quiet apartments (we barely heard neighbors or upstairs tenants). The heated garage was a real plus as it kept the cars warm during the winter months. As far as location, you really can't beat it! Great dining, bars, and shops just a couple of blocks away. The units were large with nice layouts and good sized closets. They also have a downstairs gym, which was very nice, but a little small. It could feel crowded if multiple people were in there. I thought management was very pleasant and easy to deal with. I was relocated for work to a new city or we would have definitely stayed at Doughboy another year. Overall, it felt like home and was really a great place to live.