The Preserve Scott's Addition - Richmond, Virginia

Greg B.

Since I’ve lived here at this community, I’ve had an amazing experience! My apartment is spacious and the location of the complex is convenient and walkable. Kaiyla, Ashton, and Maria are an awesome and incredibly helpful team. Definitely would recommend this community to anyone who’s new to the area!

Nom D. G.

Parking: Beyond capacity. They offer reserved spots to purchase, but they're all taken up. I often park on the street, especially if it's past 7p. Also, forget about finding parking if the Veil is having it's Tuesday beer release. The preserve does not enforce towing on violators.

Leasing office: They're nice and helpful.

Mail/Package Delivery: Regular postage is fine and will always make it to your mailbox. For packages, give the driver instructions for using the call box to leave by your mailbox. The leasing office will hold packages for you if a signature is required.

Overall building: It's nice, very cool that it's the old Coke bottling factory. The common room is great and even has an old turn table for music. The second, recently built, expansion building is a typical apt complex, with a modern look inside.

Cleaning services: The cleaning service does a good job of taking care of the common areas and hallways.

Trash: They offer valet trash pickup, which is nice. However, if you need to take your trash to the chute, it's another story. A lot of the time people leave their garbage bags in the trash room. I've seen it so piled up, you couldn't enter on any floor. Sometimes this is because the trash chute itself is backed all the way up multiple floors!
Perhaps it's time to call the city and arrange a more frequent pickup schedule.

Bike Storage: Over capacity. Plan to keep your bike in your apt.

Snow Removal: The recent snow storm left the parking lot an ice skating rink. It looks like they had a truck come an plow at some point, but all they did was push a bit of snow into parking spaces (which are in high demand), and didn't treat anything with salt. The result, fewer parking spaces and the entire lot is a black ice death trap.

I realize these issues are first world problems, but things like sanitation and the black ice parking lot are serious.

Tia N.

I moved in a few months ago and I have absolutely loved it here! My apartment gets a lot of sun light and has a great view. You can get anywhere in Scott's Addition fast just by walking and there's so much to do in the area. The girls at the office are always accommodating and have always made me and my roommate feel at home. Definitely recommend for anyone moving in the area!

Emily S.

I LOVE THE PRESERVE! Leasing office is flipping amazing and the maintenance/service guys are awesome. The apartment is really nice especially the amenities of the rooftop and pool table. Scott's Addition is a great neighborhood too. Couldn't have imagined living anywhere else.

Context: Moved to Richmond for a first job out of college in summer 2018. I've lived in a 2 bedroom unit and a 1 bedroom unit on the 4th floor of the newer second building (address 1308). The first building (address 1310) used to be a Coca Cola bottling factory and has the more industrial/lofty-type units. I recently moved out to a new city for a new job.

Pros:
+ Krystina, Molly, and Christine are super responsive and personable. They honestly have your best interests in mind. Also shout out to Kaitlin.
+ Haven't had any maintenance issues except once when the garbage disposal stopped responding, but that was fixed within 30 minutes of submitting a service request.
+ Stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops. Good cabinet space as well.
+ In unit washer and dryer!
+ Smart AC/heat control.
+ Very quiet. Can't hear other units.
+ Carpet is so nice and I miss it.
+ Closet space is huge, and the shelves are actually incredible.
+ Right next to the highway, so easy for commuting.
+ Safe complex with a fob you need to get inside the buildings.
+ Close to Stella's.
+ Pets allowed!
+ Trash valet is pretty nice. Just leave your trashcan and recyclables outside your door on certain days.
+ Scott's Addition is full of breweries and good food.
+ The windows are fantastic. Massive.
+ Amenities are great: pool table, large gas grills, and great rooftop especially. Pool is nice too as well as the club room.
+ Frequent community events with free drinks and food.
+ Everyone is friendly. A lot of late 20 and early 30 year olds, but the range goes from a few families to older adults.
+ Online portal is easy to use ish (Active Building). Pay online, send messages, keep up to date with news, etc.
+ Bike racks on both ends of building 2 (1308) and several throughout building 1 (1310).
+ Easy printing in the public space in building 1.
+ Balcony is a huge plus.
+ Bathrooms are huge and showers are nice.
+ Rooms are super clean. Great professional cleaning service before you move in.

Cons:
- Expensive if you're living solo. Recommend a roommate.
- Parking is tight. Recommend getting a private spot, so parking is guaranteed. Scott's has street parking, but it's getting more and more popular. Make sure your parking spot sign in general is hung up on your car. Had a friend whose sign fell and her car got towed rip.
- Units close to the highway may have a little noise, but it's generally white noise. Friend who lived closer to the highway side didn't mind.
- Noticed some noise from the AC starting up sometimes in the unit I was in closer to the corner of building 2 (1308). I think it was the AC for the hall. Not sure, but stopped noticing the noise after a week.
- Can only get your packages from the leasing office until they close at 6pm. Though if you message them, they will move it outside the office but still inside the building for you to pick up after they close!
- Prior to signing my lease online while I was out of state, the leasing office never picked up my calls or responded to my emails, so was def worried about that. But since I moved in, they have been super attentive and helpful.
- One time, they couldn't scan my check for rent and were going to charge me like a $200 fee. Asked them to scan it again because nothing was wrong with my bank account and then they were able to get it. From then on, I started paying online with the $1.95 online service fee to avoid another fiasco.

Overall, living at the Preserve was a great experience. No huge complaints.

Thanks for making my time in Richmond the best. I miss you guys. It was extremely difficult to find an apartment in the new city that lived up to the same standards.

Courtney H.

I stayed at The Preserve in The Found building from April-June of this year, in unit 309. The Found building is a renovated building of the original Coca-Cola factory building.

Pros: Great views from my apartment and the apartment itself is in an amazing location in Scotts Addition. Very walkable area to restaurants, bars, etc. Well insulated unit- I did not hear my neighbors.

Cons: Older appliances inside the apartment ( for example the refrigerator lacked a water dispenser), less modern touches inside the unit, the parking, construction and last but not least, ROACHES.

The parking and roaches deserve their own talking points.

Parking- they do not have enough spaces for their residents. There is a waiting list for reserved parking, which residents pay for. Some residents park on the street. Luckily, I had corporate housing so they paid for my spot. However, my reserved spot was so inconvenient and far from my unit. I'm unsure why the spots are not assigned in relation to the spots proximity to whatever building ones unit is in.

Roches- I saw the first roach in early May, second one two weeks later and another two weeks later. After seeing the first two, I notified the leasing office whom sent a bug buster agent to evaluate my apartment. As the agent found no source, the apartment was not treated. After I saw the third one, I was done and I moved. The roaches I saw were HUGE- view attached. Literally woke up at 3AM because my cat was hunting one in my apartment on a day that I had to work and be at the hospital by 7AM. It was so disgusting to see them in my apartment and it felt like leasing staff ignored the situation simply because "no source" was found. It's unhinged to me, that they did not at the least, treat the apartment preemptively.

Overall, there are more cons than pros, hence my ONE star review.

If you are looking for a more modern look and roach free apartment complex, this is NOT the place for you. Happy apartment hunting, hope this review helps.

Ryan Q.

I lived at The Preserve for over three years and absolutely loved it. My unit was beautiful, and when needed, maintenance responded quickly. The only major issue I encountered was parking. The lot between the two buildings used to include mostly free parking for residents, but the majority of those spots have since been switched to paid parking. Finding a spot after 7 p.m. can be difficult. Aside from that, though, I loved living at The Preserve, and I'll look back at my days there fondly.

Sabrina C.

It's a very nice apartment complex. The apartments are nice, and it is safe and secure. However, if you work night shift, I would highly advise against living here. There is constant construction so you will never be able to sleep. Additionally, if you work from home, be prepared for your water/power to go off at random times of the day. We had to recently deal with 3 days of our power being off from 9am-1pm. I'm not really sure why we're paying nearly $1800 a month and living in such ridiculous conditions (I certainly would not have signed up for this had it been disclosed to us prior to signing our lease) -- but it's okay, no problem at all, they'll provide mimosas for free on the weekend! Don't worry about it if you're an alcohol-free person, we don't exist 😉 A better move would have been to give everyone a discount on rent this month with all the water/power outages... The apartment & complex is very nice, the leasing agents & staff are really fabulous and extremely helpful and I really cannot say enough good about the staff here because they are awesome; but the greed of whoever owns this place is horrendous and is the only reason we are leaving. Once they finish all the construction (if they ever do), it'll be a great place to live. In the meantime, I advise caution. If you work a normal 9-5 in-office job, you'll love it here. If you work night shift or work from home -- think twice, because you'll deal with incessant inconveniences from construction.

Jesse L.

One of the oldest apartements in the area. My largest complaint is no parking is guaranteed for residents. I have to find street parking about half the time. I would only live here if it is a lot cheaper than your other options in the area.

Editing now because my apartment had a leak for 3 months that they did not fix. Also had an issue with the leasing office and they were very rude.