800J Lofts

I’ve been watching the construction of the 800J lofts for months. The location is perfect. Just off of K Street Mall, across the street from Chavez Park. It’s walking distance to most of the fun stuff in downtown, oldtown and midtown. Not to mention it’s a shiny new building.

So we made an appointment to see them and the leasing agent said he would email the floor plans to me. The appointment was for 5pm so we planned to go there immediately after work. I received a voicemail about 2pm from the leasing agent we made the appointment with. He was calling to “verify the appointment”. Normally I think that’s a good idea. However he stated that he should be available in the afternoon after 4, and he might even be there from 4 to 5 or as late as 5:30. Hmmm…

You make an appointment for 5 and then you plan to only “be here” till 5? If you want to leave at 5, you can’t make an appointment at 5. Since I didn’t get a chance to check my voicemail till about 4:30, we decided to just go in and see if he or another leasing agent was available. Also, I hadn’t received an email from him with the floor plans.

He was still there and talking to another client when I arrived. That happens. It would have been rude of him to not finish that business first. So we waited till he was finished at about 5:30.

The elevators were small and poorly finished for such a new building. Not a big deal, except I would hate to have to use them for moving in/out. Maybe they have a bigger, utility elevator somewhere else.

The first one we saw was the smallest of the 2 bedroom floor plans. The kitchen is on one wall with very little counter space. The appliances are obviously new, but not of the level you would expect from a “luxury loft community” (direct quote from the leasing agent’s voicemail). Their brochures and website claim they have gourmet kitchens. I’m not certain I’m a gourmet, but I love to cook. The kitchen is defiantly not designed or equipped for someone who likes to cook. I thought maybe the kitchen would be better in the larger floor plans. I was wrong.

The master bedroom in the first unit was small, but that’s what we expected; the unit is only 970 square feet. Also neither the master nor the second bedroom has doors. It did have a nice view of J Street that the all glass wall framed nicely.

I noticed that while the living/dining/kitchen area had an all glass wall, the cable, phone and cat5 jacks were on the wall opposite the view. In other words, you either run cables across the floor/ceiling, or you place your TV and electronics on the wall that opposite the windows. That causes 2 problems. Most people place their chairs, couches and other seating facing the TV. The way they designed their lofts, you have a nice view but it’s impractical to place the furniture to use it. Also, if your TV faces a window, you will get glare. So the design ruins the view and the picture on the TV. This situation would be understandable, if it was an old industrial building converted to living spaces. This is new construction, so it’s poor design.

How could they have designed it better? Well, there’s a fake stone column in the living area that is on the glass wall. They could have put the jacks in there. Then you could place the electronics in front of the column and arrange the seating to maximize the view. That is something that would have been feasible when building it, but not afterwards. They do have electrical outlets on the floor. They could have put a floor outlet with the other jacks. Either option would be a better design.

The ceilings have new, unfinished concrete beams. It gives the impression that someone wanted it to look like it was once an industrial building. It comes across as very fake. The wood floors are nice. And as I mentioned they have cat5 already wired in the living and bedrooms.

I asked the leasing agent about the cat5 and he initially told me it was for DSL. Really? I mentioned that DSL typically comes through the phone lines and asked if the cat5 jacks were connected to the others in the apartment or if they were connected centrally for the building as a whole. He said that I would be able to get whatever service I subscribed to with SBC. Huh? If you don’t understand the question, say so. If you don’t know, say so. This guy didn’t know when to stop digging.

Since his answer had little relevance to the question, I asked if the jacks were wired in a way that you could use them to network multiple computers in the apartment. He said “Yes, you just use your wireless router.” It’s one thing to put everything in a positive light. It’s another to simply ignore my question and tell me to do something else.

Yes, I could use wireless. I could run cat5 across the ceiling. I could use any number of networking technologies. That is irrelevant to the question. I worded the question in a way that the only valid answers are yes, no and I don’t know. Sometimes the best answer is “I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back with you.” Essentially the answer he gave was “I don’t know, but I’ll attempt to BS my way out of the question.”

Now we’re on to the next largest unit and my impression of the property is in freefall. The next largest has a much better master bedroom, with doors, and the same shortfalls as the previous one. It did, however, have a nice view of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. We went on to the even larger, corner unit.

The view was awesome. On one side there’s a view of J Street, the other the Cathedral. The corner view is of Chavez Park. Definitely the best view of the three. The master bedroom has doors, but not the second bedroom. However the unit has all of the other issues that make the other units undesirable.

They had an opportunity to make a really nice property in a very good location. They failed. Had they succeeded I might have been able to overlook the issues with the leasing agent. The poor design of the living space wiring, inadequate kitchen, and lack of service shown by the leasing staff make this property a poor choice in its price range.

Tags: Review, apartment, loft, Real Estate, Sacramento, downtown