Cielo

Lived here for a year. Not interested in living here again but it was «okay» while we were here. The apartments are nice — we really liked ours. We used the roof, gym and other amenities quite a bit. It is also close to the freeway park which is a great place to take a walk or take your dog out. Leasing agents are great… John is awesome. However, we did not have an overall great experience here. There are better options in Seattle (especially if you have a dog or puppy).
— Less dog-​friendly than advertised. There is a dog run and washroom (very convenient) but dogs are not allowed on roof or amenities (which is not a rule at any other of the apartment complexes we looked at).
— Very corporate rules but management is nice.
— Elevators are fast… once you get in them. I’ve waited almost 5 minutes before for one to come. There are only 3 elevators for 300 units.
— Rooftop layout not ideal. Outside space faces east and by the time you get home from work, the sun is already on the west.
— We got a noise complaint emailed to us and 4 physical letters sent to our door after we were told we were being too loud on my birthday. We had turned down the music immediately and left right away that night. Regardless of rectifying behavior, we still got «officially documented» and several letters sent to us.
— Have had management/​concierge tell us to pay the $ 300 fee for the roof even though we didn’t care others were sharing the space. In fact, we told multiple residents we didn’t know to come join us. They have also come up to ask us how many people we had several times (I guess the rule is if you have more than 10 people, you have to pay even if you don’t care others are there). They may have changed this policy since then but who knows.
— Asked friend (resident here) to pay $ 300 for a party she had months ago. Sent pictures of the «mess» that were not a part of her party.
— The dishwasher and appliances aren’t the best. Dishwasher gets off the tracks every time we use it.
— Have had negative experiences with the concierge. They have all turned over (like 6 or 7 of them) since we started our lease a year ago. Current ones are fine.

I like living at Cielo so far. The building is a walking distance to downtown Seattle, QFC, CapHill, also Chipotle. The facilities are well maintained every day. The staffs are friendly and helpful. Cielo has a ²⁴⁄₇ concierge and parking spaces. If you are from Seattle, you know how hard it is to find parking. There are not many apartment complexes in downtown Seattle that have parking. Cielo is also a pet friendly place. They have a backyard for dogs and a grooming room next to it. It’s very convenient, what not to love. Cielo has a yoga Tuesday for beginners and it’s FREE! They also have two places downstairs and upstairs that you can have guests over to hang out and talk or ask for reserve to hold a party. I love the view of Seattle and a fully furnished modern gym equipments on the 31^st floor. The apartments here are well designed so you can barely your neighbors noise unless if a base is going on, then you might hear a tiny bit but then it will stop after 10 because of the quiet hours. I can go on and one about what I like about Cielo and Cielo communities. People here are genuinely nice and kind. I like my neighbors, what about you!

My girlfriend and I lived here for a year lease term. We chose Cielo because of its close proximity to downtown, the newness of the building, and our positive experience with our initial leasing individual. While the building was beautiful and the amenities were a nice touch, this building certainly had its problems.
1. Staff– Jay was nice to work with as well as the new manager Chea. We found the majority of concierge staff (the staff was changing constantly) to be unfriendly and not enjoyable to work with except for a select few who have been with Cielo for a few months now. There were stretches of time when there was no one at the front desk which was very inconvenient. The overall in person communication from the staff was lackluster and could use improvement.
2. Apartments– very thin walls, you can hear everything that is going on in the apartments around you day and night. Also able to hear people going up and down the stairs, which you heard often if you lived on lower floors because the elevators were slow and often times not working properly.
3. Rooftop– WiFI was spotty and could barely use it. The heaters they provided never worked while I lived there. Outdoor patio faces EAST so you can really only use it in the morning unless you enjoy the chilly Seattle shade. TV Remote did not work properly, this may have been fixed but the times I tried to use it I could not change the channel.
4. Safety– As another reviewer mentioned, there was recently a fire in the building and while my girlfriend was in our apartment, she had no idea that there was actually a fire. No alarms went off on our floor. Had it not been for a text message from me to her, she would have never known until the fire trucks were outside with the siren. There are break-​ins to the garage but since we live in a city, that is going to happen. Just be sure to not leave any valuables in your car and always make sure it is locked.
5. Garbage Chute– When we first moved in worked fine, but after a month or two when the building began to fill up, the chute was often not working. The lights to choose recycling or trash never lit up, people often left trash bags in the trash chute rooms, and towards the end of our lease the door was locked for extended periods of time (due to the chutes not working). It got to the point where I would not even bother with the trash chute and would just take our recycling down to the garage via the elevator to dispose of.
*Want to give a shout out to the building maintenance staff for always being cordial, reliable, and the most friendly people in the building. Also want to say thank you to the two concierge staff, a young man (often worked mornings during the week and the occasional Saturday morning) and young woman (worked weekends/​shifts no one else wanted), for always being polite, helpful, and cheerful!
Overall, the building is GORGEOUS and definitely has the new building sparkle BUT for what you pay for rent in conjunction with functionality (elevators, trash chute, etc.) you can get a better bang for your buck elsewhere in Seattle.

GET EVERYTHING in WRITING — units are overpriced:
1. renters pay less on 30^th than 24^th, with bigger space /​better layout
2. berkshire communities has shady business practices and salespeople that lie.
3. Monthly utilities increase every month — NOT transparent — calculated usage on unit residency. Total building usage is divided amongst units, regardless of how many people live in each unit. Pay for monthly party water /​energy?
4. berkshire lied about transfer to another property when I had to move for work — invoiced for $ 4,210 then $ 12K+ despite refusal to lease for less than a year when doing so for others.
5. 6mos for smaller key fob. had to sign form. When I returned key I had to ask 3 times to have them sign — they lost original form — $ 50 still not refunded
6. Unsafe. Infrequent concierge. Lose /​misplace keys or they stop working — could wait an hour or more.
7. Unsafe. Robberies. Gun sighting. One glass entrance. Transients nearby park sleep at parking garage entrance. Easy entrance to follow vehicles in. Approached by non-​tenant in P3 elevator underground. They get in! Scary.
8. Unsafe. System alerts floors 2 above and 1 below. One night, I had to take the stairs from the 25^th floor because the elevators weren’t working — late for meeting. When I got outside, there were fire trucks and a fire, but no alarm!
9. Unsafe. Elevators break down frequently. Access to all floors is open due to monthly parties on the roof.
10. Residents never informed of monthly parties on roof (restricted use and loud — so lack of peaceful enjoyment) — frequent damage to amenities that is never fixed /​not monitored. Bathrooms frequently run out of toilet paper /​paper towel and since elevators are so slow… Well, you get it.
11. Roof area has poor internet quality for gym use and online reading.
12. Gym hours reduced for no
13. Staff response time to issues such as noise (paper thin walls) ranges from unresponsive to «we didn’t see /​hear anything»
14. You can hear people talking outside the heavy doors and through the walls; you can hear dogs barking; you can hear people taking the stairs in the stairwells (which are unfinished, btw) and in elevator.
15. NO PRIVACY — overhear confidential conversations and my secure internet was hacked!
16. Washer /​dryer combo is tiny AND has incredible amounts of fluff that comes out onto your clothes.
17. Fridges are tiny and veggies and fruit don’t last long.
18. Heavy doors in garage — terrible for shopping /​heavy bags or moving anything. NO WHEELCHAIR ACCESS — the laugh is, that there is a wheelchair button on the elevator — doesn’t do anything.
19. Garbage Shute is frequently not working or locked (lasted hours /​days /​months). Buttons for recycling /​garbage don’t light up and building is new!
20. Heaters on roof never worked then removed for entire winter.
21. Barbecues don’t always work — there is a plug outlet AND an on switch — no signage for this and staff don’t know this and when informed — they taped a sign to bbq lid — melted so they had no sign. wow — indicative of overall staff level.
22. Piped music — building staff stated multiple times that volume could not be changed (lack of peaceful enjoyment of amenities) and then only they can change it… but had to be told — and when they are told — still doesn’t get changed timely — very loud multiple times so cannot read a book, listen to .
23. Tenants frequently left garbage in garage, including banana peels
24. Initially told (inducement to rent) that guests could park for free and this was then changed and no guests allowed, while they allow day parking by non-​residents (unsafe access issue) who get bigger parking space!
25. Unsafe and unsightly — packages delivered are left unattended
26. Loud vacuums in cleaning hallways — appears to be only one staff for this, which is why the building /​floors are dirty for significant parts of time — also — shows how thin walls /​doors are and take up precious elevator time.
27. Heating — hot and dry — your AC is constantly working to maintain balance AND unit (for one bedrooms) is located in bedroom, which means you pay to balance the air in one room, while the area by the window is significantly colder.
28. Water pressure fluctuates, as does water temperature. It takes more than a minute for hot water — so expect cold hands and more water use to heat your shower and for anyone with thick hair.
29. Salesperson induced to sign for rent pmt by credit card without fees — there is a significant % fee. They want your banking info. You should be able to deposit to their bank because once you provide your info — they have access and based on the lack of controls identified in banking and basic operations, I wouldn’t trust their controls over your personal info.
30. Elevators always take forever. 31 floors and most of the time only one elevator; locked for maintenance parties move — endless stories on this.
MORE but no more text space…

Cielo has a nice building. It’s a nice business to live inside of.

Cielo is definitely one of the nicer if not the nicest building I’ve seen in Seattle with great ammentities.
I had the pleasure of working with Ryan Voss who went out of his way to accommodate me. This was especially helpful since I’m new to the city. His professionalism and willingness to help in every aspect to apartment hunting, connections in the professional world, to offering to help me move in my stuff at another building is why I’m writing this review.
Searching for apartments could be stressful and overwhelming, if you have the pleasure of working with Ryan you’ll be in good hands.

If you are looking here, beware of the combo washer dryers. These are not legally dryers but they are in several units. They do not dry clothes well and do not fit with the rest of the building’s image as a high end but good value apartment complex. These dryers are a cheap fix and legally not actually dryers. DO NOT lease from these people unless you get in writing that the combo will be replaced.

Update: Since the vandalism happened to cars including ours, Cielo did not notify the complex or tenants and another vandalism in the garage has occurred a week ago. This is the 5^th time or so in less than a year as it just happened again in April 2016. This time they notified tenants.
Multiple thefts from transients breaking into the garage. It allows access to the transients that live outside and there is no security in place to stop it and the management is not proactive and does not warn the residents about it.
We still love Cielo and things overall are better since the management has changed. We are staying for another year since we enjoy the location, amenities, and the walk to work.

The views are amazing, the amenities are top notch, but don’t believe the hype on sound isolation. You will hear everything that happens in the hallways outside your door. If you rent a unit near the trash chute, you will hear everything that gets tossed out clanging down, through you walls. You can hear your upstairs neighbors easily.
For the price this place costs, I expected a lot better.
The AC does work great. When we hit a stretch of unusually warm 90+ weather, the temp stayed exactly where it was set.
The clothes washing machine has broken twice since I moved in, but maintenance has come to fix it promptly both times. Annoying for a brand new building, in a unit that supposedly no one else has ever lived in.