Meridian at Pentagon City

I recently moved from Meridian at Pentagon City after 1.5yrs and I am sad to go. It was a very well managed building, the leasing staff are very helpful and professional, the concierge are always available and friendly, and the maintenance service was grade A+. Emery in the leasing office was my favorite for sure. Jennette and Shirley at the concierge desk were the kindest.
I always felt safe, the building was quiet and clean… just great all around. My apt spacious and calming, it was my sanctuary. No complaints.

Lived here for 6 months. Overall, very satisfied with the building.
Lease went well.
Unit: Quiet and climate control works well. I was on the 7^th floor and couldn’t hear my neighbors at all. One time I heard the neighbor’s alarm through the wall but I contacted management and they took care of it right away. There is a W/​D inside the unit. Mine broke only once and the staff gave me keys to an empty apartment so I could keep doing my laundry. That was great!
Amenities: I never used the pool. I tried to use the two grills but they both didn’t have enough gas left at the end of the summer so I had to take my half cooked food back inside. Fitness room is good but can get crowded in the hours after work.
Front desk staff: friendly enough and have a service to pickup packages.
Parking costs money, I can’t remember how much since I didn’t use it.
Cost: I moved in during winter so I got a special (one free month). Overall, I paid $ 1708 for a one bedroom 720 square foot apartment. I ended up finding a cheaper place to live so I wanted to move out. I was able to do a «lease transfer» where someone else signs for the remainder of the lease and I am 100% not committed to it anymore. That was fantastic!

Lived hear close to 2 years. All in all, quite satisfied with the building. The main downside is the location being in pentagon/​crystal city. not exactly the most exciting of areas.
Lease signing/​move-​in went smoothly, no issues there.
Unit: quiet and climate control works well. we are in higher floor, but have heard outside noise can be issue in lower floors. unit and building are well maintained. would prefer stainless steel in the kitchens, but everything works and is newish so can’t really complain.
Maintenance has been excellent. whenever we have had an issue it has been fixed the day it was reported.
Amenities: pool is small and shallow. more for relaxing than swimming. fitness room is good. machines are rarely broken and there is typically one available. on rare occasions, maybe once every 4 months, i run into a fullhouse and have to come back later.
Front desk staff: friendly enough and i’ve never had any issues. packages arrive fine and if i ask them for help with something they’ve always been able to assist.
Oh, and on renewing our lease they offered a free carpet cleaning and paint touch-​up. a really great perk that helped spruce up the place for another year. i really hope they offer this again when we likely renew in the spring. they should advertise this, because i haven’t had this in other buildings.
The building does tend to have a transitory population, but that’s an issue more with the area, not the building.
Cost: not cheap, but cheaper than the brand new buildings in the area. I think its a good compromise between the brand new apts in the area and some of the older buildings from the 70s.

I lived here for a year and a half and loved it. The staff is friendly, the maintenance is done either same day or next day, and there is no nickel and dime-​ing. For the area, the price point and condition of the apartment is reasonable (carpet/​linoleum vs. hardwood and white vs. stainless steel appliances.) Walls are a little thin, but it is an apartment building. Comes with the territory. If you work in the area or in DC, I highly recommend this complex.

My husband and i just bought a house and moved out of our apartment at Meridian Pentagon City. I’m happy to have a house now, but am also kinda sad to be leaving. I think their rates are actually the fairest in all of Crystal City/​Pentagon City. I’ll be honest, the units are standard apartment style — white cupboards and white appliances, no granite countertops, hardwood floors nor ss appiances (at least not in my unit, maybe they are updating other units??)… but, they make up for it with their lower rates compared to some other apartment complexes in the vicinity. I really liked all the front desk conconcierges (I’m going to miss Jeanette!!), and office staff. Since we had to break our lease early when we closed on our house, Steve the property manager went surprisingly out of his way to work with us. And the services are really good — laundry delivery, signing for packages, free coffee, etc. It’s such a convient location. I was happy with my experience there from beginning to end.

I lived here for about a year and while the staff was super friendly — especially the concierge — the building was ridiculously expensive. While the price may have been one of the seemingly better options in the neighborhood, we had to call maintanence about once a month (broken dishwasher no fewer than 4x, laundry machine broken/​replaced several times, garbage disposal broke 5−6x etc.) not to mention there was mold growing beneath our carpets, the source of which was never found and if it was, they never told us. The dust accumulation was unbelievable too — you could clean and dust the entire apartment one day and within 36 hours, there would be a new layer. One of the most irritating issues we encountered related to our showers/​water pressure. Apparently there was an issue with the water-​saving shower heads in the bathrooms in all units causing water to back up and make this awful moments-​from-​exploding sound. When maintanence came to fix it, their soultion was to just remove the shower head, leaving us with absoutely horrendous water pressure. For the money we were paying, you would think they’d replace the head with something similar. As if all that weren’t bad enough, when we moved out the management company claimed we owed them money to have the carpet replaced — something we were told upon leasing that carpet replacement and cleaning was part of transitioning to new renters and would not be charged to us. Worth noting is there was but ONE stain on our carpet — and it was from laundry detergent — a SIMPLE fix if you used a steam cleaner, which costs all of $ 30 for a rental. I will NEVER live in a Meridian apartment again. Ever. We’ll see if speaking to them will help but you can bet I am not paying for carpets that did not need to be replaced, just required a good steam cleaning. I was going to give it 3 stars but the more I recall how irritated I was dealing with maintanence all the time, the more I realize I’ve never been more inconvienced with an apartment in my life — and I’ve lived in 5 other apartments over the last 7 years… Never once was my security deposit not returned, and that includes one aparment where posters peeled paint off walls and another apartment wherein we had 3 – 4 red wine stains on the carpet, in two rooms, that had no prayer of being salvaged. Absurd and ridiculous.

I was a little wary of Meridian at first, because all of the reviews online were so outdated. I have come to the conclusion at this point that people generally just don’t write reviews for apartments unless something bad has happened. I am trying to buck that trend here.
If it were possible to give the Meridian more than 5 stars, I would. Sadly, I am paying my final month of rent today. I have lived here for a year, and I will miss the building, the staff, and the management company greatly. I am only moving because I am about to have a new roommate, and that 7-​month-​old, 50 lbs, ball of fur is going to require me to come home during lunch time for walks. So, I moving into DC to be a 10 min walk from work. Otherwise, I would not be moving.
Now to the review, when I was initially looking at apartments in the area from my former home in Nashville, Meredith and the rest of the crew in the leasing office went above an beyond for me. She took pictures of my unit so I could get a feel for what it would look like beyond just the floor plan. She walked me through the process step-​by-​step when filling out the paperwork and leasing agreement. Anytime I had a question, she or someone else would reply promptly. I could not have asked for better service.
After moving in to my apartment, I received the same service from the staff and maintenance crews. Someone is available 24÷7÷365 to answer my questions or provide me with assistance (you will rarely need maintenance help). Of all the staffer members, I love Janette the most. She works the concierge desk from the afternoon to midnight on weekdays in the Phase 1 Building. Everyday, when I arrive home from work, she greets me by name and is always smiling. I am going to miss her presence at my new apartment, and wish I could take her with me. Get to know her if you are new to the building, she will bring great joy to your day.
The facilities are great. Big gym with great equipment. Beautiful lobby areas that are always spotless. Nice coffee machines. Private dog park outside. Excellent elevators. Gas grills on big patio areas. The pools on the roofs are a bit small, but that isn’t unusual for the DC area.
The surrounding area is perfect for anyone looking to escape the noisy, busy city environment. You are close to both the Pentagon City (closer) and Crystal City (CC) Metro stops. The Pentagon City metro is an easy 7 minute walk, 8 if you are slow. The Metro ride into the city is less than 10 minutes on the yellow and around 15 on the blue line. It is hard to beat that for a commute.
One of the best aspects of living there is that you are walking distance from Costco!!! You don’t have to drive if you own a grocery cart, which is huge on the weekends when traffic there is at a stand still. Harris Teeter is also a fifteen minute walk for whatever you can’t get at Costco, as is the Pentagon City mall (my girlfriend loved that fact). There are also always cabs on the street, and it is less than a 5 min. ride to the airport. They have a Zip Car in the parking lot now, which is really cool.
If you enjoy running or walking, CC is perfect for both. Long Bridge park has several perfectly kept soccer fields and a great view on the running path of the planes taking off from Reagan. The Mount Vernon trail is accessible from CC and is a wonderful route for serious runners. The crime rate also seems to be low. Most folks work at the Pentagon or in the office buildings in CC. An older crowd compared to Rosslyn or Clarendon, but it means it is a lot less crowded in restaurants and a lot quieter. My girlfriend never felt unsafe walking from the Metro stop at night. Still plenty of great places to eat and several sports bars in the area (CC Sports Pub and Champps are the best for drinks). The neighborhood wine store, Crystal City Wine Shop (2 minute walk to Army Navy and 12 St) has a friendly staff with great selection.
Paying rent is easily done online. The website blog also has great updates when there are a issues that will affect residents. They host resident functions quiet often, and I always love seeing the pet of the month postings in the elevators.
NEGATIVE: The only issue I would warn anyone about is renting a south facing apartment. We did and it cost us A LOT of money in electricity from May-​October. We conserved energy greatly because of it, but we were still seeing about a $ 130 bill each month. You make it up in the cold months, though. Any room with a south facing view is going to be hotter, but the individual AC unit in the apartment cannot handle the high heat.
I have been in other apartments that are able to adequately cool such areas, but Meredian’s individual air conditioning units cannot get the room any cooler than 20 degrees below the ambient temp. Your apartment will also be facing the hotel right behind the buildings, and there are always tour buses beeping early in the morning in the parking lot there. It is quiet annoying at 5 am or 11 pm.

The information at the bottom of this page is incorrect, and needs to be updated: the business center is most assuredly NOT open 24 hours a day.

I’ve been living in this building for over a year, with some mixed emotions. The best part of this building by far: the dog run that is attached to the building. I have a dog, and it’s fantastic to be able to let her loose when I take her out, she loves playing with the other dogs, the other dog owners are really friendly and often get together for drinks, dinner, bocce league, etc. The other dog owners have also been great about helping each other out by watching dogs if someone is out of town, taking dogs out if their owner is working late, etc. This sense of community and great neighbors are the sole reason I resigned my lease.
The worst part of this building: the management. It’s bad on a good day, and terrible on a bad one. All but one of the concierges are lovely, especially Janette. Steve, the assistant manager, is great as well. But Michelle, the property manager, has said that it is her responsibility to only serve the building owners and not the residents (her words). She is hostile if you ever dare to push back on something she says, and the favorite action of the management is no action at all. She also regularly contradicts herself based on mood; I have no respect for her at all. If you are moving in and they tell you that improvements are being made soon, expect «soon» to be in 2 – 3 years. Yes, they do hold small events sometimes, but I’d rather have a great management team that cares about their residents than one that hands me a glass of wine once every couple of months! This can really be seen by the high turnover rate within the office staff itself, something is obviously wrong here.
The apartments themselves are adequate for the area and price, no real complaints there. In my opinion you can live in a nicer building with a better apartment and management for the same price in the area — and if I didn’t have a dog this is the route I would go. 7 minute walk from Pentagon City and Crystal City metros is great.
Pool is fine. Small, typically frigid, but a nice place to get a tan. No food or drinks allowed up there at all, so don’t expect to relax by the pool with a beverage and enjoy the sun.
Parking in this place is a NIGHTMARE. Absolute NIGHTMARE. And management does NOT care. At all. If you have a full sized car, SUV or truck you will have a hard time parking here. The spots are tiny, compact cars regularly take the EXTREMELY LIMITED full sized spots. Motorcycles pay $ 30 a month to park and also love to take the full sized spots, while people with cars and SUVs pay $ 75 a month for the exact same thing. They love to tow from the garage, even those with visible passes that are parked 100% in the lines of a parking spot — they have threatened to tow my SUV for being centered within the only space available (which is compact, I understand, but I regularly do not have a single space to park my SUV that is not compact) because it is not «appropriately sized» however they say that motorcycles and Mini Coopers are within their rights to park in one of the few full sized spots available. There are also regularly break-​ins within the garage. It’s gotten so bad that I take a picture of my SUV and every car around it when I park to prove that I am centered to avoid paying tow fees.
Overall, there are nicer places, the property manager is one of the worst I’ve ever seen, and I would not live here if I did not have a dog. Avoid the property manager at all costs.

We have been here since last fall and we absolutely love living here! So many things to love about our home… the location is perfect for those who like to walk most places, we love your front desk lady, Janette, our building is always clean, the staff is friendly and helpful, we have great amenities, AND our office plans themed get~togethers for holidays! We honestly have no complaints and love calling this place our home!
To respond to Fenny L.‘s one star rant below: Yes, you don’t live here! Ditto as Frank Q. has stated so well in his review.

Just wanted to add my two cents. First and most importantly, the Meridian has been a wonderful place for my wife and I to call home for the last two years. The (relatively) new owner/​management company renovated all the common areas and have truly turned the buildings into a luxury residence. We honestly couldn’t be happier. Yes, rents are going up (sigh), but that’s just the way the market is shaking out in the rest of Arlington and specifically, Pentagon City. We were fortunate enough to lock in rent at a lower rate with an earlier lease.
To respond to Fenny L.‘s one-​star rant below: don’t have a cow, man; you don’t even live here! The check requirement does seem like a hassle, but it’s for record keeping purposes. Do you (and the management company) really want the front desk to serve as a cashier and payments processor? I don’t think so. Besides, guest parking is supposed to be arranged by the *tenant* for his/​her guest, so presumably the tenant would have access to his/​her checkbook. To be fair, the real mistake the front desk made was letting you sign up for a guest pass to begin with, because you weren’t the tenant.

I have been living here for two years and I LOVE this apartment complex. It has every possible amenity and luxury you could ever imagine. I have never had problems with the staff or maintenance or anything. It is super convenient and located 2 blocks from the Pentagon City metro station. There is a free coffee machine in the front lobby and the gym is newly renovated. And there are TWO buildings.
My ONLY complaint would be that that it is ridiculously expensive to live here. I could get an apartment in Manhattan for the price I pay here. And to top it off, the additional parking fee is ridiculous as well.
But based on my experience at the Meridian, I love it. This is the first place I have ever lived where I have had ZERO complaints.

I will be the first to admit, I’m pretty ditzy. For a while in high school, I actually dyed my hair blonde (and promptly turned it green by jumping into a pool hours after my bleach dye job) not to be fashionable or cool or trendy… I wanted to be blonde so I could stop explaining myself to people.
So it should come to no surprise that I would turn into the wrong apartment complex and tried to get a guest pass.
Now, that in itself is no biggie. I’m clearly an idiot and deserve to get yelled at for trying to get a parking pass at the wrong apartment complex. No… my tale is much more convoluted and astonishing… surpassing even my ditzy expectations.
Picture it. It was a chilly autumn evening, and by 7pm, it was already pretty dark. My husband was driving, but relying upon me (and the GPS to get us to where we needed to be). After getting turned around a few times (to pick up ice), I *thought* I saw the right street number, and made my husband pull into the circle in front of the apartment complex, so that I could get a guest parking pass.
I walk into the Meridian, and go up to the unmanned concierge desk. After calling out «hello?!?» a few times, the concierge showed up and asked me what she could do for me. I tell her that I needed parking pass, and she tells me that there was one pass left for the night. Excellent! She proceeds to hand me a ticket to fill out for tag number of our car, year, make, model and etc. A little weird, but at the same time, I was pretty impressed with security on this place. Geez, I’ve been in gated communities that wasn’t so stringent! As I didn’t remember the tag number of my husband’s car, I told her to hang tight and give me one second, I needed to run out to look. It took less than a second, but when I came back — the front doorway was locked! And the concierge wasn’t at her desk to buzz me in! Huh? Finally, another tenant let me in. Who leaves the desk when you know someone is running out and back again?
Either way, a few «hello?!» later, the concierge comes back, takes the ticket, and hands me ANOTHER form to fill out. This one, is basically a legal document stating that I as the undersigned and blah blah blah. Um, wasn’t that what the first ticket form was for? Anyways, I dutifully fill this out, all the while asking the concierge where we would be parking (as I had several things in the car to bring with me, and was trying to decide if I should unload now or after we parked). The concierge tells me that I can park «anywhere». Remembering that there were a few parking spots in the circle, I asked if we could park there… and she snaps at me «NO!». So I asked *where* was the parking lot/​garage, and she just again tells me that I will be able to park «anywhere». OK. Not exactly helpful, but I’m still trying to fill out form #2, so I decided to tackle one thing at a time.
After signing away my first born child, I hand her the form, and she then tells me that she needs a $ 5 check. Huh? I tell her that I don’t have my checkbook with me, but I have cash. She promptly tells me that she doesn’t take cash (but isn’t cash legal tender? And won’t bounce like a check would? Although… I guess if you lived here, you wouldn’t have guests over that would bounce a $ 5 check? But then… if you lived here, would you have guests that carried around a checkbook!!!). I tell her that I don’t have my checkbook with me… because WHO USES CHECKES ANYMORE?!? She snidely tells me that *SHE* carries her checkbook. Well great, I’m glad that she still lives in the dark ages and doesn’t know what online bill pay is… but the *rest* of us tend to carry cash or credit cards.
Nope, she wasn’t willing to help me. Won’t accept cash. And if I decided to use my credit card, there would be a $ 12 surcharge.
Are you for SERIOUS!!!
In a panic, I called Michelle L (to borrow a $ 5 check from her. Seriously… most ridiculous situation EVER) — who (after busting a gut laughing and mentally cursing my name out), tells me that I’m in the wrong building. BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I told you I was ditzy! And fortunately, when we finally did find her building — the concierge was *much* nicer. Thank goodness.
But I seriously don’t know how the people who live in this building ever have friends over. If the filling out the billion forms weren’t enough (and I’m only going to park here for a few hours… not sign a lease… geez!), I would then need to hand over a $ 5 check? CHECK??? I mean… who, under the age of 98, carries a CHECKBOOK with them?! And a $ 12 surcharge for a $ 5 parking fee if I use credit card?!? Really??? And honestly… did the concierge lady really have to be *quite* so snippy? Isn’t her job to… help people?
UGH. Not only would I never live here (I wouldn’t ever be able to have people visit), but I’m so glad that no one I know lives in this building… because I’m not sure I would ever be able to visit them. Ever. Seriously. A CHECK.