I'm a resident of Patent 523 and it's one of my favorite places I've lived in Seattle. My partner and I are extremely grateful for Terri'll's help in the leasing office. We came to ask questions about our lease and she provided support that was informative to the point where she saved us from what could have been a financial burden. Thanks to her, we'll be staying at Patent another year.
Justin Huertas
Jan 12, 2024
While, I’m not moving to the property. I still wanted to leave a review of my experience. I did a self tour at this property and their ?sister property? ; fountain court. Anyways, my contact/communication was all via text with Joel. And he was a very helpful, good communicator, resourceful with my apartment self-tour. Overall very pleasant to deal with. I decided against the property, just due to their central location. It’s great for someone who loves how busy, close,and active it is, but I’m a bit to anxious for that and was looking for while staying central and still far away from the noise. Beautiful spaces and layouts at the property. Looks like a fun community to make a home.
The community team has been very supportive and helpful throughout my move-in. They have been on top of making sure I have everything I need and always friendly and responsive when I reach out with questions. I just attended a resident event and the team was all there and were very welcoming to me and my dog!
Becky Laurence
Dec 08, 2023
Excellent location and friendly staff. Quick turn around on maintenance requests. I actually found the rent prices more favorable than other similar gated apartment complexes in the area, especially because the apartments are larger and have a better lay out compared to other apartments in the capital hill area. The monthly parking fee is also competitive compared to other luxury apartments I looked at. Overall very happy with my experience so far.
Recently moved into Patent 523. The leasing staff helped coordinate everything and made move-in easy, especially Dane.
All the paperwork was handled with care and all questions and concerns were taken care of.
We lived here for 2 years and had a very positive experience. When we were apartment hunting before moving in here, the rent here was a bit lower than other 1BRs nearby which were slightly worse, so it was an easy choice. I have no regrets about living here. We mainly moved out because the apartment was too small to shelter inside 24/7 for another year, and the pandemic shut down all the indoor common areas.
Pros:
*Ideal location. Easily walkable to light rail and Rite-Aid, right next door to the library and QFC, access to all the best of Capitol Hill.
*Best amenities of any apartment building in the area, AFAICT. I particularly love the large exercise room (three treadmills means no waiting your turn during peak times! plenty of extra space for yoga or aerobics! attached bathroom so you don't need to trek back to your apartment when nature calls! kept very clean and full of natural light! never encountered an out-of-order machine in 2 years!!) and the event space, which had everything you could want for hosting gatherings that you'd rather not cram into your apartment.
*Package lockers and secure mailroom--never had anything stolen, and didn't have to worry about fetching deliveries immediately in case they disappeared.
*Lovely courtyard with a nice fountain and greenery
*Great staff, always happy to help
*Units feel nice and have sensible layouts
*Flexible move-in and move-out
*Reasonable move-out fees that they're very transparent about
*I love having a trash room/chute and compost bins that are changed out frequently. Not dealing with dumpster stench makes taking out waste a lot less miserable. But I agree with the other reviewer that the dumpster rooms at ground level are unpleasant to walk by most of the time.
*No built-in A/C, but they installed window vents where you can hook up your own if you like. We never needed one because it's easy to get a cross-breeze by propping open the door and cracking a window.
*Never saw any pests (or evidence thereof) in or around the buildings.
*You can get Wave internet instead of Comcast (though Comcast is also available, I think)
*Hardly heard our neighbors, unless we had the door propped open. Near the end we did notice some noises from upstairs that sounded like a cat running around, but nothing we couldn't sleep through.
Cons:
*If your unit faces Broadway, expect street noise at all hours. Try to get a higher floor or a different side of the building if this is going to bother you. Harvard is surprisingly quiet for being so close.
*I didn't love how much of the apartment space is carpeted, since it's harder to clean, though I expect it also saved us from too much noise from above.
*We had a friend move out around the same time we moved in who complained that they significantly raised his rent two years running, which I would believe, but it may have just been keeping up with the market. Our rent increase after the first year was just shy of 3%, which we were very happy with.
*We heard a lot about car break-ins in the garage, and even one case of a car being stolen, near the end of our stay. They do have private security patrols and gated access, but there's only so much you can do.
*They installed some "smart" devices late in our stay, including door locks and a thermostat. It was nice to have a key code we can reset rather than a limited number of key fobs which can be lost/forgotten/damaged, but in general I think smart locks are a security risk, and I don't want to have to go to a website/install an app and create an account in order to manage basic devices in my home.
Note: If I could give half stars, this would be a 4.5 review instead.
I spent the last 2 years in this building and I'm glad this building was good enough for me to want to stay during COVID and not want to relocate. It's been a pleasure calling Patent 523 my home for my time here. The management/maintenance is really responsive to any questions/requests and the location is really great for the price I paid/the quality of unit I lived in.
My only things that I would call out as some not great experiences (and I know the building has been working to get these better so I really appreciate that):
1) Car break-ins are common, even in the secure, resident-only parking area. In my 2 years I've heard/seen them several times, and it even happened to me once. When I asked management about why there aren't any security cameras inside the resident-only parking, I was told that they wouldn't make a difference and that there would still be human error (i.e. people tagging behind others). Neither the building/ACE Parking want to take accountability for these occurrences, and just chalk it up to "bad neighborhood/the police's job". In my opinion, having cameras everywhere and folks knowing they would be recorded would just discourage break-ins. It keeps happening because they know there's no way to track culprits/keep people accountable.
2) Packages sometimes get stolen - the delivery guys sometimes don't follow instructions and just leave packages in the common areas/sometimes outside the building where the public can access. This has gotten much better over time as management tries to educate the delivery services, and didn't happen so much my 2nd year compared to my first.
As some feedback for the management company (I know the management team on site probably has no say in this and is just following the rules set from above):
I would have been more convinced to stay for a 3rd year if I had some promotion/discount with my lease. A "resigning promotion" that's just a no-rent increase is kinda a slap in the face when many apartments around the area are offering really good promotions (I'm talking 8-10 weeks free rent, free parking, etc), making my current lease way too expensive compared to other places of even better quality (newer buildings, more amenities, etc). I even noticed they were offering the discounted rates for new tenants.
Overall, one of the better places you could probably find on Capitol Hill and I would recommend it (and have been to friends/colleagues).
I lived at Patent 523 for about... 7 months. Prior to living here, I lived at La Salle apartments (not too far away) which is an older, and therefore not as 'nice' or modern apartment, so I came to Patent 523 with a slightly different set of expectations.
My experience while living here was, admittedly, fairly average. Actually no... that's not really true. One thing I will say is that the people that live here are incredible. During my brief stay here, I've met a music producer and what seemed to be active filming going on within these buildings. To say the people that live here are creative and motivated individuals would be an understatement -- as even during the pandemic, people were hard at work here being creative.
Including the staff. I was worried to read about the car breakins in their garage (since I bought a car during my stay here), but due to efforts of my own (e.g. having no items within view of the car) and the security personnel they added here to address these issues, I have not personally
experienced this event. The cleaning staff here are also quite kind and dedicated individuals -- I see them very often and hard at work making sure the entire apartment complex is a very clean and safe environment. And the folks at the leasing office. They have a tough job. This pandemic has made everyone experience really difficult times. Despite the risk of coming into contact with a myriad of prospective tenants, and keeping up with all the churn that's been going on recently due to lowered rents, the staff still does a very good job at replying to everyone's requests and making sure they feel heard. Shout out Mari, who very patiently and calmly explained all the charges I had at moveout. Admittedly it wasn't cheap, but it was what I agreed on. All that money goes towards keeping the facilities and the whole area safe, clean, and fun, so I totally understand all of that. You don't get to live somewhere as nice as this without having to pay the price to match; that's certainly one thing I wasn't expecting when I moved in but have come to understand by now.
Admittedly, these 5 stars were initially meant to be a concession of sorts. It's funny how nowadays 5 stars has become the standard for acceptable, but I guess that's what happens when everyone demands and wants the best from everyone else all the time. But at the same time, while everything is not perfect here, Patent 523 gets 5 stars because all the staff are doing an amazing job despite all the hate and stress they're having to deal with. I know it's only one review but I hope they keep up the amazing job they've been doing, and before they know it I'm sure this place will be one of the best reviewed apartments on the Hill. I know this because whereas some places will just talk about listening, this place is making an active effort to improve. That means everything. They're not perfect now, and perfect doesn't really exist, but they're working towards that. That's the kind of place you want to live; where there are amazing people striving towards good and perfection -- and that's what Patent 523 has to offer.
Now that I've written all this I kinda wish I had gotten to stay here a little longer to learn more about the people and the community that's here. I'm sorry I didn't get to, but what that means is that you, the reader, can take advantage of the open spot to experience what I didn't get to.
If you're wondering, I was over on #651. South-facing, top floor, cozy space (yes, lol, it's a small studio apartment -- but at the same time, where I lovingly called home for months). Looks like it's still available --not sure for how long, but currently it seems Patent 523 has a myriad of a lot of amazing homes available for rent. If you, reader, decide to join their community, I hope you have as good of an experience as I, upon reflection, am realizing I had. Hm. I'm actually realizing that I love and will miss this place. Hope it sticks around and keeps it up so others get to feel what I did.
Young Seattle
Mar 22, 2021
Rent Special
Pet Friendly
Luxury
Elementary school nearby
Pet owners
Wellness
Work-from-home
