I have mixed feelings about AC Lofts. My friends pay the same rent as I do but live in much nicer buildings in Buffalo. Here's a brief summary of my experience at AC Lofts:
DESIGN, FIXTURES AND AMENITIES - 2/5
- The building was recently remodeled (2013, I think), but it looks like a cheap college dorm. There are holes and cracks in the ceilings, which I'm guessing were kept to make the apartments look more like the original warehouse. The windows don't open to allow fresh air in. The toilets
...clog and back up often, which is a pain. The bathrooms look extremely cheap in general. There is cheap carpet and linoleum in most units, and many bedrooms don't have closets. (You get a wardrobe or two, if you're lucky.) These are not luxury lofts; the ceilings are high, but that's about it.
-Things break down a lot. The entire building's cooling system broke down earlier in the summer and we were without AC for days. The fire alarm goes off often. This weekend, there was a small fire in the laundry room and, instead of doing an emergency repair, they shut down the entire laundry room for the rest of the day/night. Very inconvenient.
-A little bit of false advertising from the website: There is an awkward "gym" area with a treadmill and an elliptical, not a full gym. The website also claims there's a "retail" space in the building, but there isn't.
MANAGEMENT / COMMUNICATION - 3/5
-The current building manager (Stacy) is very nice, but she is a bit disorganized and does not respond to e-mail promptly. To reach her by phone, you have to call the main office -- no cell number available. The people at the main office can be quite rude (and clueless) at times.
MAINTENANCE - 3/5
-The maintenance guys are really nice. There's always at least one maintenance person in the building during the day, and there is an emergency number for nights and weekends. I called the emergency number once and had to wait almost an hour to hear back, even though it wasn't late at night.
CLEANLINESS - 3/5
-The building itself is quite clean, and the maintenance guys clean a lot. However, many apartment windows are very dirty and covered in spiderwebs and spiders in the summer.
LOCATION - 4/5
-The location is quite central, especially for those working in downtown Buffalo. That being said, the area can be a bit sketchy late at night/on weekends.
Distances:
Community college - across the street
Metro (streetcar) - 2 blocks
Bus station, library - 1 block
Max of 1.