1700 California St Residential Apartments

Advise any potential renter to reconsider before they rent at 1700 California

The Pros:
- Great concierge/front door staff
-Very convenient location (across from whole foods and near cable cars).
- Great views on upper floors (almost makes up for the fact that the apartments are such low-end quality)
- Very pet friendly (but seems most buildings in the area are)

The Cons (and there are many):
- Beware if you rent from these guys. Get everything in writing with a signature before you move... in and have a penalty clause with $$ amounts if they don't deliver. They will promise you everything to get you to sign up as a tenant and then will not deliver. New gym and whirlpool? Never happened. Bike parking? Never happened. Repair the elevators? Happened but only after many weeks of elevators that wouldn't run consistently or go to upper floors. Fix the plumbing that you hear like a sewer anytime someone uses water - day or night? Never happened in 8 months.
- On moving in we were given no building or apartment orientation at all.  We only discovered where the emergency stairs were because the elevator kept breaking down.
- Several of the units on the upper floors are being converted to condos and demolished. Be prepared to hear a lot of noise during the construction. This building reverberates noise.
- The building is attached to a medical facility which means there are medical vehicles blocking traffic and driveways throughout the day.
- No window insulation and units are old so apartments are exposed to Van Ness, Franklin and California street noise. It is loud and never-ending. The worst time for me was around 4:30AM when the garbage trucks and whole foods deliveries begin.
- Bad interactions with building manager and the managing company (Mosser). Lots of verbal promises to fix things or make amends. Then no delivery. This created a major lack of trust. Shouldn't they at least try to make you feel like they value your tenancy?
- Priced significantly over current market rates for similar properties

It's a shame that such a potentially great building is so poorly maintained and that the management seems not to care at all about the tenants. We moved here with such high hopes but were quickly disillusioned.

My advice: If you like the general area, check out the Rockwell across the street (modern, new, beautiful units with car and bike parking and a real gym for less money) or any of the many great apartments nearby. Read More

We lived here for about 10 months and overall was pretty negative. We had to move early due to very loud sporadic plumbing noise that woke us up throughout the night - it started about 2 months after we moved in. We notified the property manager 5 times but it was never repaired. We later learned than several other units have the noise problem as well.

Further, we received notice from the City a couple months after we moved in that major renovations to the building would occur including demo of... many units including ours. We never were told that by the building when we moved in although they filed for permits 2 months before we signed the lease. Disappointing that the property manager didn't disclose this when we signed the lease.

We were made several promises that weren't kept by the property manager including a bike cage, ability to terminate our lease without a penalty after we learned our unit would be demo'd and we'd have to move. We were also promised compensation for no bike cage, elevator issues, and the plumbing noise but never received anything.

The elevators were out several times forcing us to walk up or down 10 flights of stairs.

The unit we were in had great views and decent closet space. However the windows were old and leaky - street noise and cold air came through them easily. The appliances were newish but very low end.

On the positive side, the front door staff are super nice and friendly. There are many really nice tenants as well although many are or have moved out already. Read More